©eatij'g  pedagogical  Hibrarg  —  17 

METHODS 


OF 


TEACHING  MODERN  LANGUAGES 


PAPERS  ON  THE  VALUE  AND  ON  METHODS 

OF  MODERN  LANGUAGE 

INSTRUCTION. 

New  Edition. 


A.  Marshall  Elliott,  Calvin  Thomas,  E.  S.  Joynes,  W.  T.  Hewett, 

F.  C.    DE   SUMICHRAST,  A.    LODEMAN,  W.  B.  SNOW,  W.    R.    PRICE, 

E.  H.  Babbitt,  C.  H.  Grandgent,  H.  C.  G.  von  Jage- 

MANN,  E.   SPANHOOFD. 


D*  C.  HEATH  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS 
BOSTON     NEW  YORK    CHICAGO 


Copyright,  1893, 
By  D.  C.  Heath  &  Co. 

1E8 


!(J!«ARY        £DUC.  DEPT. 


PUBLISHERS'   NOTICE. 


In  all  departments  of  education  teachers  to-day,  more  than 
ever  before,  are  reading  the  literature  of  their  profession ;  and 
it  is  hoped  that  modern  language  instructors  may  find  in  the 
following  papers  stimulus  and  suggestion  in  a  branch  of 
education  that  is  now  recognized  as  exceedingly  important  in 
any  scheme  of  liberal  training. 

Teachers  of  the  modern  languages  have  repeatedly  inquired 
for  copies  of  papers  or  addresses  dealing  with  their  profession, 
and  it  was  suggested  to  us  that  it*  would  be  very  acceptable 
and  helpful  if  we  should  publish  a  collection  of  some  of  the 
best  thoughts  on  the  value  and  methods  of  Modern  Language 
Teaching.  We  have  therefore  compiled  this  book  of  ad- 
dresses and  articles  that  have  come  to  our  notice  or  have  been 
mentioned  to  us  by  prominent  friends  of  modern  language 
instruction.  By  kindly  consenting  to  their  publication  in 
this  form,  the  authors  have  co-operated  with  us  in  presenting 
pedagogical  opinions  of  interest  to  the  thoughtful  considera- 
tion of  scholars  and  teachers. 

The  order  of  these  papers  is  due  partly  to  their  respective 
dates,  and  partly  to  the  order  in  which  they  were  suggested 
or  presented  to  us. 

D.  C.  Heath  &  Co. 

Makch,  1892. 

Note. — In  the  edition  of  1915,  the  preliminary  Report  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  the  National  Education  Association,  made  in  July,  1914,  has 
been  included,  and  three  recent  papers  substituted  for  some  of  those  in 
earlier  editions. 

a  o  *y  ~  m  m 


CONTENTS 


FAGB 

Modern  Languages  as  a  College  Discipline         ....         1 
By  Professor  A.  Marshall  Elliott  of  Johns  Hopkins  University. 

Observations  upon  Method  in  the  Teaching  op  Modern 

Languages 11 

By  Professor  Calvin  Thomas  of  Columbia  University. 

Reading  in  Modern  Language  Study         29 

By  Professor  Edward  S.  Joynes  of  the  University  of  South  Carolina. 

The  Natural  Method         45 

By  Professor  W.  T.  Hewett  of  Cornell  University. 

Notes  on  the  Teaching  op  French 50 

By  Professor  F.  C.  de  Sumichrast  of  Harvard  University. 

Practical  and  Psychological  Tests  op  Modern  Language 

Study         90 

By  Professor  A.  Lodeman  of  Michigan  State  Normal  School. 

Modern    Language    Study   in   American  Public    Schools. 

What  next?        109 

By  William  B.  Snow,  English  High  School,  Boston. 

Aims  and  Methods  in  Modern  Language  Instruction     .       124 
By  William  R.  Price,  New  York  State  Department  of  Education. 

The  Teaching  op  French  and  German  in  our  Public  High 

Schools  138 

By  Professor  C.  H.  Grandgent  of  Harvard  University. 


Vl  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Statement  of  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Modern  Lan- 
guages,  National  Education  Association     .     .    ' .      .       144 

On  the  Use  of  the  Foreign  Language  in  the  Class-room     .       171 
By  Professor  H.  C.  G.  von  Jagemann  of  Harvard  University. 

Common  Sense  in  Teaching  Modern  Languages     .      .      .       186 

By  E.  H.  Babbitt,  Instructor  in  Columbia  University. 

Translation  into  English 207 

By  E.  Spanhoofd,  St.  Paul's  School,  Concord,  N.  H. 


METHODS   OF  TEACHING  MODERN 
LANGUAGES. 


MODERN  LANGUAGES  AS  A  COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE.1 

BY  PROFESSOR  A.  M.  ELLIOTT,  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY. 

There  is  one  aspect  of  the  Greek-Modern  Language  ques- 
tion on  which  there  has  been  no  special  stress  laid,  so  far  as 
I  have  seen,  in  the  various  discussions  of  it  that  Mr.  Adams's 
paper  has  called  out;  viz.,  the  importance  of  modern  lan- 
guage study  as  a  special  disciplinary  factor  of  our  higher 
education.  In  truth,  the  few  references  to  the  subject  outside 
of  the  favorable  view  held  in  the  Phi-Beta-Kappa  oration 
would  seem  to  imply  a  denial  of  the  existence  of  such  an  ele- 
ment altogether  in  the  modern  idioms  as  compared  with  the 
classic  tongues.  The  eminent  president  of  Yale  College  as- 
serts that  they  "are  distinctly  recognized  as  essential  condi- 
tions of  professional  and  business  success,  or  accomplishments 
of  gentlemanly  culture."  Professor  Josiah  P.  Cooke  of 
Harvard  assures  us  that,  in  his  opinion,  "to  compare  German 
literature  with  the  Greek,  or,  what  is  worse,  French  literature 
with  the  Latin,  as  a  means  of  culture,  implies  a  forgetfulness 
of  the  true  spirit  of  literary  culture."  And  a  leading  con- 
temporary journal,  after  qualifying  all  controversy  of  this 
sort  as  an  "  inexcusable  display  of  ignorance,"  adds  with  a 

1  Read  before  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  1887,  and  reprinted 
with  the  permission  of  the  author. 


2  <  MO'DK'jRN   LANGUAGES 

sort  of  oracular  sanctity,  "  And  for  philology,  there  practically 
is  no  foundation  except  Latin  and  Greek,  —  and  Greek  rather 
than  Latin."  Such  expressions  as  these  show  most  clearly  the 
dogmatic  spirit  in  which  this  whole  subject  is  approached  by 
many  advocates  of  the  exclusive  classical  idea  when  the  ques- 
tion of  training  comes  up.  As  zealous  holders  of  the  only 
true  faith,  they  would  fain  exclude  the  converts  to  modernism 
from  all  the  distinctive  elevating  influences  of  their  creed, 
and  would  relegate  them  to  the  domain  of  purely  utilitarian 
interests,  or  to  the  changing  caprices  of  society ;  and  this 
subordinate  position  is  granted  them  more  from  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  age  in  which  we  live  than  from  any  special  feeling 
of  their  worth  as  members  of  the  great  corporate  body  of 
scholars.  For  the  scholar  in  truth  it  is  even  hinted,  in  some 
cases,  that  their  field  is  useless,  and  for  the  educator  in  par- 
ticular the  subjects  that  occupy  them  are  regarded  as  a  species 
of  cumbersome,  worthless  lumber  that  litters  up  the  mental 
workshop,  and  that  must  be  gotten  rid  of  as  soon  as  possible, 
if  the  range  of  the  active  powers  of  the  mind  is  to  be  widened. 
In  other  words,  it  is  set  down  as  a  tenet  of  axiomatic  wisdom 
that  modern  languages  have  no  place  whatever  among  the 
formative  elements  which  help  to  develop  the  mental  faculties. 
This  doctrine,  however  extreme  it  may  seem,  when  thus 
plainly  stated,  is  held  by  a  large  majority  of  those  who  repre- 
sent, at  present,  the  guiding  force  in  matters  of  education 
throughout  our  country ;  but  I  apprehend  that  it  is  for  the 
most  part  the  result  of  traditional  beliefs,  or  of  the  unhappy 
failure  of  methods,  or  of  sheer  prejudice  in  a  few  cases, 
rather  than  of  actual  experience  in  such  matters.  It  may 
be  doubted,  in  fact,  whether  this  important  branch  of  learn- 
ing has  been  represented  by  rigid  scientific  methods  in  our 
educational  system  sufficient  to  test  even  the  most  elemen- 
tary worth  of  its  subjects  as  factors  of  a  living  power 
suited  to  intellectual  growth.  Until  this  shall  be  done, 
it  is  difficult  to  understand  the  fairnass  of  any  comparison 


AS  A  COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE.  3 

between  them  and  another  set  of  kindred  subjects  that  has 
long  received  special  cultivation  by  the  most  eminent  scholars, 
and  has  held  a  prominent  place  in  the  training  of  our  youth. 
In  the  controversy  now  before  the  country  with  reference  to 
the  merits  of  the  study  of  Greek  in  our  higher  institutions,  as 
compared  with  that  of  science  and  modern  languages,  I  fail 
to  see  the  appropriateness  of  disparaging  remarks  on  the  edu- 
cating qualities  of  the  latter,  especially  as  to  that  part  of  the 
question  that  touches  upon  the  modern  idioms.  Science  has 
had  the  chance  to  cast  off  her  swaddling  clothes,  and  it  is  now 
only  a  question  of  time  as  to  the  position  she  will  eventually 
occupy  in  the  list  of  studies  that  are  to  constitute  the  building- 
elements  of  the  mind.  With  the  modern  languages  it  is 
wholly  different.  They  have  but  just  started  upon  the  road 
of  a  true  scientific  development,  and  will  naturally  require 
some  opportunity  to  show  their  value  as  educating  elements. 
But,  on  general  principles,  such  comparisons  as  these  are  more 
or  less  odious  in  all  circumstances,  and  they  become  especially 
so  when  there  is  an  evident  intention  to  multiply  the  claims 
to  superiority  of  a  given  department  of  learning  over  others 
that  are  allowed  few  or  more  of  the  privileges  that  attach  to 
the  would-be  favorite.  The  inconsistency  of  comparing  the 
potential  forces  of  any  two  systems  of  educational  training 
without  first  according  to  both  of  them  similar  opportunities 
of  cultivation,  and  like  circumstances  of  growth,  is  obvious  to 
every  one  who  has  not  the  drag-chain  of  some  creed  about  his 
neck. 

The  reproach  flung  at  the  modern  languages  by  the  par- 
tisans of  the  exclusive  order  of  classical  studies,  that  they  do 
not  show  brilliant  results  of  scholarship  in  this  country,  is  but 
a  covert  way  of  begging  the  question  in  a  discussion  of  their 
relative  standing  in  any  grade  of  culture.  Up  to  now  no 
chance  has  been  given  to  show  whether  favorable  results  may 
be  obtained  from  them,  since  other  linguistic  learning  has  held 
the  sway,  to  the  driving  out  of  all  serious  modern  language 


4  MODERN  LANGUAGES 

study.  The  time  for  pursuing  them  is  often  cut  down  to  a 
minimum ;  far  less  teaching  force,  proportionately,  is  allowed 
to  them  than  to  other  departments ;  no  fixed  standard  of 
requirement  is  set  for  them,  as  an  academic  discipline ;  in  fine, 
they  are  practically  crowded  out  of  many  college  schedules, 
and  then  mercilessly  inveighed  against  because  those  who  fol- 
low them  do  not  present,  with  all  these  disadvantages,  as  high 
a  standard  of  critical  linguistic  acquirement  as  if  they  had 
spent  years  of  careful  preparation  in  them.  Until  they  shall 
have  had  a  fair  trial  in  the  hands  of  well-trained,  competent 
teachers ;  until  the  study  of  them  shall  have  been  given  all 
the  favor  in  time  and  position  which  are  accorded  to  the  clas- 
sics in  our  colleges,  it  is  difficult  to  see  the  justness  of  any 
demand  that  they  shall  make  the  same  showing  of  general 
training  or  of  special  scholarly  attainments. 

If  we  inquire  into  the  depreciatory  feeling  with  which  the 
modern  languages  are  regarded  by  scholars  generally,  we 
shall  find,  I  think,  that  the  responsibility  for  a  great  part  of 
it,  at  least,  rests  upon  the  shoulders  of  those  who  have  the 
chief  power  of  appointment  to  positions  in  our  higher  in- 
stitutions. The  fatal  college  nepotism  that  has  pervaded 
this  whole  system  in  many  places  has  practically  ren- 
dered it  a  sort  of  closed  corporation  to  all  who  are  educated 
outside  the  pale  of  their  own  individual  sanctuaries.  The 
natural  consequence  has  been  that  young,  inexperienced,  and, 
only  too  often,  poorly  prepared  assistants  have  been  called  to 
office,  and  through  them  the  departments  have  had  to  suffer 
not  alone  for  a  lack  of  efficient  instruction,  but  also  in  the 
general  appreciation  both  of  the  student  and  of  an  intelligent 
public.  This  misfortune  has  fallen  more  frequently  upon  the 
modern  languages,  perhaps,  than  upon  any  other  depart- 
ments, from  the  simple  fact  that  j^hejdea  is  so  generally  prev- 
alent that  anybody  can  teach  thr  m. 

We  have  only  to  examine  a  considerable  number  of  cata- 
logues of  our  colleges  to  see  that  this  unfortunate  state  of 


AS  A  COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE.  5 

affairs  is  much  more  extensive  than  is  generally  supposed. 
A  boy  who  has  spent  one  academic  year  of  two  hours  per 
week,  for  example,  on  his  French,  is  then  called  to  teach  it ; 
or,  again,  a  gentleman  who  knows  nothing  of  either  French  or 
German  receives  an  appointment  in  them,  and  goes  abroad  for 
two  months  in  the  summer  to  prepare  himself  for  the  impor- 
tant position ;  such  are  but  too  common  illustrations  of  the 
kind  of  hands  into  which  these  branches  often  fall.  What 
wonder,  then,  in  such  circumstances,  that  the  pupil  should  lose 
all  respect  for  his  subject,  and  grow  conceited  with  reference 
to  his  own  acquirements  in  it,  while  as  yet  he  has  not  an 
inkling  of  decent  knowledge.  This  procedure  is  a  downright 
disgrace  to  any  system  of  instruction,  and  should  be  forced 
aside  by  the  timely  action  of  the  leading  institutions  of  this 
country,  by  placing  all  language  study  upon  an  equal  footing 
with  the  same  rights  and  privileges,  and  by  demanding  like 
results  of  discipline  from  both  the  classical  and  modern 
idioms.  The  time  would  then  soon  come  in  which  the  latter 
would  no  longer  be  regarded  as  fit  tools  simply  for  the  busi- 
ness man,  or  as  only  pleasing  accomplishments  of  the  society 
dilettfljiti. 

The  importance  of  having  specially  trained  teachers  in  this 
work  would  seem  manifest  from  the  very  nature  of  the  subject, 
and  yet  no  such  necessity  has  been  generally  recognized  by  us 
up  to  the  present  time.  That  intelligent  young  men  become 
in  consequence  simple  information  machines,  stuffed  with 
systems  of  facts  that  they  have  no  chance  to  digest,  and  that 
they  come  to  play  mere  parrot  roles,  learning  their  task-work 
without  any  stimulus  to  awaken  their  powers  of  observation 
or  shape  their  judgment,  is  unfortunately  a  sad  fact  in  much 
of  our  modern  language  study.  A  further  consequence  of 
this  state  of  things  is  a  d "gradation  of  the  subject,  a  stifling 
of  all  spontaneous  interest,  i  nd  a  deadening  apathy  on  the 
part  of  the  student.  No  incentive  is  placed  before  him  to 
awaken  curiosity  for  learning,  to  strengthen  the  perceptive 


6  MODERN  LANGUAGES 

faculties,  and  to  cultivate  the  power  of  concentrated  mental 
effort.  It  is  to  this  end  that  I  would  urge  here  an  intelligent 
historical,  disciplinary  study  of  these  subjects,  as  peculiarly 
adapted  to  a  wide  range  and  variety  of  minds.  In  recognizing 
this  cardinal  fact,  German  educators  have  given  them  an  im- 
portant place  in  their  schools  and  gymnasia,  and  for  the  last 
two  decades  have  been  thereby  rewarded  with  most  gratifying 
results  in  the  general  linguistic  training  of  their  youth.  No- 
where else  as  there  has  stress  been  laid  upon  the  philological 
study  of  these  idioms,  and  the  natural  consequence  has  fol- 
lowed that  faulty  methods  have  been  rooted  out,  the  standard 
of  their  appreciation  everywhere  raised,  and  rich  fruits  gar- 
nered in  their  advance  in  academic  discipline.  It  was  this 
religious  regard  for  the  spirit  rather  than  the  letter  of  lan- 
guage that  lifted  Germany  out  of  the  Slough  of  Despond  in 
which  all  linguistic  study  was  sunk  three-quarters  of  a  century, 
ago,  and  gave  Ijer  such  vantage  ground  over  all  other  nations 
that  they  will  probably  never  be  able  to  overtake  her  in  this 
work.  Here,  too,  just  in  proportion  as  methods  have  been 
bettered  and  the  true  spirit  of  linguistic  training  developed, 
the  modern  languages  have  risen  higher  and  higher  in  the 
scale  of  potent  agencies  for  mind-culture,  and,  in  some  parts 
of  the  empire,  have  for  years  stood  beside  the  classics  and 
shared  with  them  all  their  rights  and  privileges.  The  begin- 
nings of  a  similiar  change,  too,  have  been  noted  in  our  own 
country,  where,  in  proportion  as  the  worth  of  these  studies 
has  become  known,  they  have  universally  taken  a  higher 
stand  among  the  disciplines  for  special  education.  The  wealth 
of  material  they  offer  for  philological  training  and  historical 
investigation  is  becoming  more  appreciated  every  day,  and  it 
is  now  only  a  bold  spirit  and  rigidly  scientific  method  that  are 
generally  needed  to  raise  them,  in  the  estimation  of  scholars, 
above  the  plane  of  simple  "polite  accomplishments."  The 
principles  and  scope  of  their  scientific  study  have  never  been 
Stated  clearly  and  sharply  enough  in  our  plans  of  college  edu- 


AS  A  COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE.  7 

cation,  and  the  result  has  been  that  they  are  only  too  often 
regarded  as  fit  subjects  for  those  who  work  little,  and  there- 
fore as  necessarily  constituting  a  part  of  the  "  soft  electives," 
that  "  Serbonian  bog  "  where  all  intellectual  virtues  are  swal- 
lowed up. 

The  defective  methods  according  to  which  they  are  some* 
times  taught,  and  the  summary  manner  in  which  they  are  fre- 
quently shoved  aside  when  they  clash  with  other  studies, 
cannot  but  discredit  them  in  the  mind  of  the  serious  student. 
It  cannot  be  doubted,  too,  that  it  is  a  grave  mistake  for  edu- 
cators to  depreciate  their  value  so  long  as  they  occupy  a  place 
in  our  scheme  of  instruction,  since  it  is  absurd  to  suppose 
they  do  not  exert  a  detrimental  influence  on  the  habits  of  dis- 
cipline in  other  departments  when  they  are  thus  disparagingly 
treated.  No  one  set  of  disciplinary  elements  can  be  specially 
neglected,  as  a  part  of  any  given  system,  without  producing 
baneful  effects  upon  others  connected  with  it,  however  remote 
they  may  be  in  subject-matter,  or  different  in  mode  of  presen- 
tation. But  we  are  obliged  to  confess  that  this  attitude  of 
college  authorities  toward  the  modern  language  branches  is  in 
part,  at  least,  the  fault  of  the  department  itself.  The  shift- 
less, slip-shod  instruction  that  boasts  of  teaching  any  language 
with  two  hours  per  week,  during  a  single  academic  year,  must 
naturally  tend  to  make  a  slouch  of  the  otherwise  honest,  en- 
thusiastic student,  and  turn  into  a  conceited  charlatan  the 
pupil  who,  for  lack  of  previous  sound  training,  is  disposed  to 
skim  over  his  subjects.  To  earnest  and  experienced  educators 
such  a  procedure  must  seem  sheer  nonsense,  and  it  is  to  be  ex- 
pected, therefore,  that  they  will  have  as  little  of  it  as  possible. 
The  fact  of  the  matter  is,  that  our  whole  system  of  modern 
language  instruction  needs  overhauling  in  this  respect  before 
it  can  hope  to  command  the  consideration  that  it  ought  to 
have,  both  from  scholars  in  other  departments,  and  from  the 
public  at  large.  It  is  useless  to  plead  for  favor  on  the  one 
hand,  and  blame  those  who    underrate    its    value    on    the 


8  MODERN  LANGUAGES 

other,  unless  we  recast  our  methods,  and  show  by  convincing 
results  that  there  is  abundant  material  for  our  work.  The 
subject-matter  is  surely  not  at  fault  with  reference  to  the  pres- 
ent abnormal  position  this  branch  of  learning  holds  in  the 
estimation  of  scholars.  Obloquy  has  been  thrown  upon  it  be- 
cause of  unjust  prejudices  in  certain  cases  ;  in  others  be- 
cause the  new-comer  does  not  tread  the  accustomed  ruts  of  a 
traditional  creed.  It  is,  therefore,  viewed  with  suspicion ; 
but  until  its  powers  shall  have  been  tested  by  the  same  dis- 
cipline of  years  required  for  other  departments,  and  it  shall 
have  failed  to  meet  the  demands  made  of  it,  we  can  hardly  es- 
teem it  fair  to  condemn  it  to  the  exclusive  and  not  flattering 
regime  of  society  circles  and  of  business  interests.  No  means, 
in  my  opinion,  could  at  present  be  more  efficient  in  raising  this 
subject  to  a  higher  level  of  development  than  the  introduction 
of  a  thorough  historical  basis  for  all  college  work.  It  is  stating 
a  trite  fact  when  we  assert  that  every  intelligent  pupil  is  in- 
terested in  understanding  the  whys  and  wherefores  of  phe- 
nomena that  he  has  learned  to  use  mechanically.  How  much 
greater  interest,  then,  must  a  subject  arouse  in  him  from  the 
beginning,  if,  instead  of  playing  a  parrot-like  part,  he  is  led 
to  exercise  his  ingenuity  and  test  his  powers  in  the  discovery 
of  relations  before  hidden  to  him ;  and  this  he  will  readily  do 
if  the  history  is  steadily  kept  before  him  of  the  growth  of 
form  and  expression,  with  their  resemblances  to  modes  of 
thought  already  familiar  to  him,  and  to  the  natural  develop- 
ment of  the  varying  phenomena  of  speech  in  general.  Lan- 
guage thus  ceases  to  be  a  sort  of  "  Fifteen  Puzzle  "  to  him, 
since  he  sees  philosophy  enough  in  it  to  lubricate  the  other- 
wise dry  machinery  of  grammar.  He  learns  with  zest  any 
new  series  of  facts  connected  with  it  because  they  serve,  in 
their  turn,  to  further  illustrate  the  principles  that  have  become 
fundamental  notions,  so  to  speak,  in  his  mind.  And  no  ex- 
perienced educator,  I  think,  will  maintain  that  the  learner 
can  acquire  these  habits  of  comparison  and  reflection  more 


AS  A  COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE.  9 

readily  in  a  vehicle  or  system  of  thought  the  farther  separated 
it  is  from  his  own.  The  real  training  that  belongs  to  all  lan- 
guage-study must  come  more  rapidly  in  proportion  as  we  can 
eliminate  differences  of  idioms  during  the  primary  stages  of 
it,  and  carry  the  pupil  back  to  a  few  principal  sources  of 
growth,  which  have  their  raison  d'etre  in  a  common  origin. 
The  modern  idioms  will  suggest  themselves,  here,  as  most 
valuable  adjuncts  to  this  rational  mode  of  language-study, 
since  their  processes  of  creation  and  development  lie  within 
the  range  of  strict  historical  proof,  and  their  life-history  may 
be  followed  up  step  by  step  through  all  the  stages  of  their 
complex  growth.  If  it  is  the  object  to  get  the  learner  as  far 
away  as  possible  from  his  natural  intellectual  bent,  as  some 
writers  on  this  subject  would  seem  to  suggest,  why  not  ply 
him  with  Chinese  or  Arabic  formula,  which  would  require  ex- 
traordinary mental  gymnastics  ?  Why  not  force  him,  from 
the  start,  to  spend  time  in  casting  his  thoughts  in  the  artifi- 
cial mould  of  Sanskrit  or  some  other  complex  system,  as  foreign 
as  possible  to  his  natural  analytic  routine  ?  It  is  precisely  to 
avoid  this  squandering  of  time  and  energy  that  a  study  of  the 
modern  European  languages  is  so  useful  before  proceeding  to 
that  of  the  older  tongues.  The  student  in  them  becomes  ac- 
quainted with  forms  of  thought-expression  closely  allied  to 
his  own  ;  his  mind  can  suit  itself  to  the  new  clothing  with  less 
waste  of  time  than  by  the  reverse  process  ;  and  thus  by  a  reg- 
ular progression  from  the  better-known  types  of  his  own 
tongue  to  the  less  familiar  word-building  and  phrase-setting  of 
the  new  idiom,  he  attains  the  objects  of  his  labors.  I  hold,  in 
truth,  that  the  rational  way  to  learn  language  is  the  same  as 
for  other  things ;  that  is,  to  move  from  the  known  to  the  un- 
known, to  pass  from  the  native  tongue  to  the  next-lying  liv- 
ing system,  where  this  is  possible,  and  thence  to  that  form  of 
speech  in  which  the  so-called  dead  language  is  locked  up.  To 
study  Latin,  therefore,  I  would  begin  with  French  and  work 
on  to  a  tolerable  mastery  of  Italian,  after  which  the  mother- 


10  MODERN    LANGUAGES. 

idiom  would  come  almost  of  itself,  and  all  three  languages 
would  be  learned  more  understandingly  than  the  ancient 
tongue  alone  can  possibly  be  according  to  the  present  system ; 
and  the  time  required  for  all  three,  I  think,  would  be  found 
little  more  than  what  we  now  spend  on  Latin.  However  un- 
orthodox this  doctrine  may  seem,  I  have  seen  it  tried  in  a  few 
cases  with  such  marked  success  that  I  am  sure,  if  for  Mr. 
Adams  some  such  bridge  as  this  could  have  been  thrown 
across  the  chasm  between  his  native  English  and  the  domain 
of  Greek  roots,  we  should  never  have  known  "A  College 
Fetich."  But,  on  the  other  hand,  even  if  we  accept  the  cur- 
rent theory,  and  place  the  older  idioms  first  in  the  line  of  lin- 
guistic topics  to  be  presented  to  the  mind,  irrespective  of  any 
natural  relation,  it  seems  to  me  self-evident  that  our  order  of 
progression  would  be  incomplete  if  we  should  allow  any  break 
to  exist  between  the  training-period  of  youth  and  the  future 
practical  activity  of  the  man.  Between  college  and  life  there 
ought  to  be  no  gap.  The  ending  of  every  system  of  instruc- 
tion, whatever  it  may  be,  should  naturally  lap  on  to  the  sphere 
of  those  broader  and  more  varied  duties  that  crowd  upon  the 
man  in  the  fierce  battle  of  his  after-life.  And  I  cannot  but 
feel,  therefore,  that  Schleiermacher  is  wholly  correct  when  he 
remarks  in  his  Erziehungslehre,  "  If  the  natural  passage 
from  the  school  into  life  is  not  reached,  then  we  have  either 
been  upon  a  false  route,  or  we  did  not  begin  right."  Have  we  in 
America  struck  this  bridge  in  language-study  ?  Does  the 
present  position  of  modern  languages  in  our  higher  institu- 
tions, as  connecting-link  between  the  old  and  the  new,  between 
classicism  and  modern  life,  fully  represent  that  stage  of  care- 
ful transition  discipline  which  our  age  demands  ? 


OBSERVATIONS   UPON    METHOD    IN    THE    TEACH- 
ING  OF   MODERN   LANGUAGES.1 

BY  PROFESSOR    CALVIN    THOMAS,    COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY. 

It  is  a  very  common  practice  in  professional  discussions 
to  begin  with  some  remarks  upon  the  importance  of  one's 
subject.  I,  however,  will  venture  upon  a  different  kind  of 
exordium  by  expressing  the  opinion  that  my  subject  is  not 
of  much  importance ;  or,  at  any  rate,  that  it  is  not  half  so 
momentous  as  a  great  many  people  suppose  it  to  be.  I  have 
a  conviction  which  has  been  strengthening  for  some  time,  that 
the  subject  of  method  in  teaching  receives  in  general  more 
attention  than  it  deserves.  I  think  it  probable,  nay  to  my 
mind  it  is  certain,  that  a  good  deal  of  the  teaching  that  goes 
on  in  this  country  is  suffering  severely  because  of  laying  too 
much  stress  upon  matters  of  method.  Quite  a  large  portion  of 
the  teaching  fraternity  are  making  of  method,  if  not  a  fetish 
to  worship,  at  least  a  hobby  to  ride,  and  that  to  the  detriment 
of  the  country's  highest  pedagogical  interests.  If  I  can  trust 
my  own  observation,  a  person's  reverence  for  what  is  com- 
monly called  method  usually  varies  inversely  with  his  own 
intellectual  breadth. 

Let  these  remarks  of  mine  not  be  misunderstood.  There  is 
a  sense  in  which  a  teacher's  method  is  the  most  important 
thing  about  him,  is,  in  fact,  the  essential  source  of  his  power 
and  his  influence.  His  method  in  this  sense  is  nothing  less 
than  his  entire  character  displaying  itself  in  his  work.  It 
designates  not  so  much  a  mode  of  procedure  for  accomplishing 

i  Read  at  the  first  meeting  of  the  Michigan  Schoolmasters'  Club,  1880. 


12  OBSERVATIONS  UPON  METHOD  IN  THE 

a  particular  piece  of  work,  as  rather  the  spirit  which  informs 
and  directs  all  his  work.  In  other  words,  it  is  the  working 
expression  of  his  personality,  his  general  way  of  imparting 
his  own  intellectual  life  to  his  pupil.  But  the  word  method 
is  much  more  commonly  used  as  synonymous  with  routine. 
It  has  reference  to  the  details  of  procedure,  and  is  a  name,  not 
for  the  incommunicable  secret  of  personality,  but  for  the  easily 
divulged  secret  of  machinery.  Now,  it  is  method  in  this  latter 
sense  that  I  think  receives  more  respect  and  more  attention 
than  it  deserves.  I  am  aware,  of  course,  that  it  is  not  easy 
always  to  keep  these  two  senses  rigidly  apart  in  one's  mind,  ; 
and  to  respect  method  in  the  former  sense  while  thinking  but- 
indifferently  of  it  in  the  latter.  One's  routine  may  be  inti- 
mately bound  up  with  his  personality,  but  it  need  not  be  so,  and 
usually  it  is  not  so.  Nor  do  I  say  that  matters  of  routine  are 
never  of  any  moment.  There  may  be  circumstances  in  which 
it  is  highly  important  to  decide  between  the  comparative 
merits  of  two  or  more  processes  for  accomplishing  a  given 
result.  What  I  deprecate  is  the  wide-spread  tendency  I  ob- 
serve to  treat  routine  as  if  that  were  the  thing  of  chief  impor- 
tance ;  as  if  it  were  the  real  key  to  a  teacher's  power  and 
usefulness.  For  that  it  certainly  is  not.  There  are  always 
two  other  questions  upon  which  more  depends  than  upon  this 
questions  of,  How  ?  These  are  the  questions,  What  ?  and 
Why  ?  Let  the  teacher  put  to  himself  the  inquiries  :  What 
knowledge  or  capacity  is  it  that  I  am  seeking  to  impart  ?  and 
to  what  end  ?  Let  him  settle  these  clearly  in  his  own  mind, 
and  then  the  question,  How  best  to  teach  ?  will  usually  take 
care  of  itself.  At  any  rate,  it  will  no  longer  seem  a  difficult 
or  bewildering  problem. 

Having  now  defined  my  position  with  regard  to  method  in 
general,  I  turn  to  the  subject  of  modern  languages  for  the 
purpose  of  illustrating,  amplifying,  and  perhaps  here  and 
there  qualifying,  the  views  already  set  forth. 

In  recent  years  the  public  has  heard  a  great  deal  about  a  so- 


TEACHING  OF  MODERN  LANGUAGES.  13 

called  natural  method  in  the  teaching  of  languages.  This 
method  is  really  nothing  new  in  the  history  of  the  world ;  it 
has  been  known  and  used  for  centuries.  But  it  has  acquired 
great  notoriety  in  this  country  of  late  on  account  of  the  vigor- 
ous crusade  its  votaries  have  been  carrying  on  against  the  tradi- 
tional practice  of  the  schools.  What  this  traditional  practice 
is,  is  of  course  well  enough  known.  A  pupil  who  is  to  study, 
let  us  say  German,  is  first  required  to  commit  to  memory  the 
grammatical  inflections  of  the  language.  For  the  purpose  of 
aiding  his  memory  in  the  retention  of  the  grammatical  forms, 
and  also  for  the  purpose  of  giving  him  the  beginnings  of 
a  vocabulary,  he  reads  as  he  goes  along  a  certain  number 
of  easy  German  exercises,  and  likewise  translates  a  number  of 
easy  English  exercises  into  German.  All  of  this  study  is  es- 
sentially grammatical.  The  learner  then  takes  up  some  Ger- 
man reader,  with  which  he  works  for  a  few  weeks  or  months, 
as  the  case  may  be,  the  aim  being  to  fix  thoroughly  in  his 
mind  the  elementary  principles  of  the  language  he  has  been 
studying.  After  this  he  takes  up  the  study  of  literature,  and 
his  goal  is  henceforth  simply  to  learn  to  read  German  as 
readily  and  as  intelligently  as  possible. 

Now,  a  few  years  ago  we  began  to  hear  from  certain  quarters 
that  all  this  is  wrong ;  that  a  pupil  should  learn  a  foreign 
tongue  just  as  he  learned  his  mother  tongue  in  his  infancy ; 
that  is,  by  at  once  beginning  to  hear  it  spoken  and  to  imitate 
what  he  hears.  We  are  told  that  the  initial  study  of  grammar 
is  unnatural,  since  the  child  hears  nothing  of  the  grammar  of 
his  own  language  until  after  he  has  learned  to  speak  said  lan- 
guage, and  to  speak  it,  mayhap,  with  commendable  correct- 
ness. From  this  the  corollary  naturally  follows  that  the 
teacher's  chief  effort  should  be  to  see  to  it  that  his  pupil  shall 
of  all  things  learn  to  speak  the  language  he  is  studying.  The 
originators  of  this  agitation  were  in  the  main  very  excellent 
teachers,  who  would  have  succeeded  with  any  method.  As  it 
was,  having  secured  good  results  of  a  certain  kind,  they  began 


14  OBSERVATIONS   UPON  METHOD   IN   THE 

to  think  the  magic  was  in  the  method  rather  than  in  them- 
selves.  They  were  able  to  secure  striking  testimonials  from 
distinguished  persons  as  to  their  success  in  teaching  pupils  to 
speak,  and  so  they  started  an  agitation.  And  the  agitation 
has  grown.  Its  promoters  have  multiplied  and  spread  abroad 
through  the  land.  They  are  busily  writing  articles,  essays, 
prefaces,  in  praise  of  their  doctrine.  To  a  certain  extent  they 
have  got  the  ear  of  the  public,  which  is  usually  ready  to  listen 
to  any  one  that  comes  talking  majestically  about  "  modern 
ways  "  of  doing  things,  and  winking  his  eye  and  biting  his 
thumb  at  the  expense  of  the  old  fogies.  Many  of  these  ener- 
getic reformers  use  very  positive  language.  They  tell  us  in 
effect  that  a  notable  educational  conflict  has  been  going  on, 
which  has  now,  however,  been  decided  in  their  favor.  They 
claim  to  have  carried  through  a  great  reform,  and  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  assure  the  public  that  any  one  who  in  these  days  con- 
tinues to  teach  a  modern  language  in  the  old  way  is  behind  the 
age.  Out  of  much  literature  in  this  vein  which  is  continually 
falling  under  my  eye  I  will  quote  only  the  following,  from  the 
preface  to  a  lately  published  German  Reader  :  — 

"  It  is  now  conceded  by  most  teachers,"  says  this  writer, 
"  that,  in  learning  any  modern  language,  little  is  gained  by 
beginning  with  the  study  of  the  grammar,  and  that  the  most 
successful  method  is  the  natural  one,  by  which  a  child  learns 
to  speak  its  own  language  ;  i.  e.,  by  constant  practice  in  conver- 
sation. A  mass  of  grammatical  rules  and  forms  at  the  outset 
renders  the  subject  dry  and  uninteresting,  and  the  time  so 
spent  can  be  much  more  profitably  employed  in  colloquial  ex- 
ercises, which  are  absolutely  necessary  in  acquiring  fluency  of 
speech,  no  matter  how  thoroughly  the  rules  of  grammar  have 
been  mastered." 

Surely  it  is  trifling  with  serious  matters  to  say  of  such  a 
statement  as  this  that  it  is  important  if  true.  If  true,  it  is, 
in  the  light  of  what  is  now  actually  going  on  in  the  great 
majority  of  American  schools  and  colleges,  enough  to  take 
one's  breath  away. 


TEACHING  OF  MODERN  LANGUAGES.  15 

What,  then,  are  the  merits  of  this  position  ?  What  are  the 
general  merits  of  this  controversy  so  far  as  there  is  any  con- 
troversy ?  (The  quarrel  is  after  all  a  very  one-sided  one.) 
This  is  a  question  which,  as  I  surmise,  must  be  of  especial  in- 
terest to  persons  who  may  have  found  it  necessary  or  conven- 
ient to  undertake  to  teach  a  modern  language  before  having 
attained  to  a  very  wide  or  deep  scholarship  in  the  language, 
and  before  they  have  formed  through  personal  experience  an 
independent  judgment  with  regard  to  the  matter  under  con- 
sideration. Such  persons  may  well  wish  to  know  how  a 
conservative  teacher  can  go  on  his  way  and  live  and  labor  una- 
bashed in  the  face  of  all  these  breezy  proclamations  like  the 
one  quoted. 

Well,  I  have  something  to  say  on  that  subject ;  but,  before 
proceeding  to  say  it,  I  desire  to  remark  incidentally  that  the 
statement  quoted  is  very  far  from  being  true*  What  the 
writer  says  is :  "  It  is  now  conceded  by  most  teachers,  that  in 
learning  any  modern  language,  little  is  gained  by  beginning 
with  the  study  of  the  grammar."  To  be  true,  the  statement 
should  run  :  "  It  is  now  conceded,  and  for  that  matter  always 
has  been  conceded  by  most  teachers,  that  with  pupils  of  a 
certain  kind,  and  for  the  attainment  of  certain  results,  little  is 
gained  by  beginning  with  the  study  of  the  grammar."  Or  to 
speak  more  explicitly:  all  teachers  are  agreed  that  if  you 
wish  to  teach  any  one  to  speak  a  language,  the  learner  must 
be  given  practice  in  speaking.  The  sooner  you  begin,  and  the 
more  practice  you  offer,  the  better.  But  this  is  not  an  admis- 
sion wrung  but  yesterday  from  the  teaching  profession  by  the 
successes  of  the  natural  method.  Nobody,  so  far  as  I  know, 
ever  held  or  advocated  any  other  opinion. 

Then,  as  to  that  other  observation  that  a  "  mass  of  gram- 
matical rules  and  forms  at  the  outset  renders  the  subject  dry 
and  uninteresting/'  when  shall  we  hear  the  end  of  such  non- 
sense ?  When  shall  we  see  the  end  of  this  wretched  desire  to 
make  all  things  soft  and  sweet  for  the  youths  and  maidens  of 


16  OBSERVATIONS   UPON  METHOD  IN  THE 

this  generation  ?  Grammar  deals  with  the  facts  and  the  laws 
of  language,  and  language  is  the  most  important  of  all  human 
institutions.  Whatever  interest,  whatever  charm,  attaches  to 
the  study  of  any  historical  science  ought  to  attach  to  the  study 
of  language.  The  facts  of  grammar  are  as  interesting  as  any 
other  facts,  and  the  laws  of  grammar  are  as  interesting  as 
other  laws.  It  was  doubtless  unfortunate  to  subordinate 
sense,  poetry,  philosophy,  history,  —  everything  to  grammar, 
as  was  done  by  a  good  many  teachers,  especially  of  the  Greek 
and  Latin,  a  few  years  ago.  There  are  better  uses  for  the 
masterpieces  of  literature  than  to  be  made  so  many  vehicles 
for  teaching  grammar.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally 
pernicious  to  speak  of  grammar  and  to  treat  it  as  if  it  were 
some  miasma  from  which  the  dear  boys  and  girls  must  be  ten- 
derly shielded  just  as  far  as  possible.  Let  them  learn  the 
grammar  and  learn  it  well.  It  will  be  good  for  them.  If  the 
teacher  has  the  instincts  of  a  scholar  himself,  the  facts  of  lan- 
guage will  not  seem  dull  or  uninteresting  to  him  ;  and  if  they 
do  not  seem  so  to  him,  he  will  usually  contrive  that  they  shall 
not  seem  so  to  his  pupil.  But  suppose  that  they  do  seem  so  ? 
Or  rather,  suppose  the  learner  occasionally  has  a  sensation 
that  he  is  working  ?  What  of  it  ?  There  are  worse  things  in 
the  world  than  that.  He  is  supposed  to  be  preparing  in 
school  for  life,  and  when  he  gets  out  of  school  the  Genius  of 
Life  will  admonish  him  at  every  turn  that  valuable  acquisi- 
tions have  to  be  worked  for.  He  may  as  well  learn  early  to 
face  this  simple  doctrine  and  to  make  the  best  of  it.  It  is  no 
part  of  the  teacher's  business  to  make  things  easy  at  the  ex- 
pense of  thoroughness.  It  is  a  mistake  if  he  thinks  that  the 
real  and  lasting  regard  of  his  pupil  can  be  won  in  that  way. 
Healthy  boys  and  girls,  and  young  men  and  young  women  in 
school  and  college,  do  not  want  an  easy  time.  They  wish  for 
work  to  do,  and  they  enjoy  work.  It  is  not  their  desire  to 
float  down  the  stream  with  a  soft-hearted  pedagogue  to  keep 
them  clear  of  all  the  difficulties  and  asperities  of  navigation. 


TEACHING   OF   MODERN   LANGUAGES.  17 

They  prefer  to  paddle,  and  if  the  course  lies  up  the  stream, 
against  a  tolerably  swift  current,  they  like  it  all  the  better. 
In  the  high  school  they  may  talk  freely  about  the  sweets  of 
idleness,  and  may  at  times  seem  to  be  rather  fertile  in  precau- 
tions against  over-exertion.  So  the  college  student  will  often 
profess  to  have  a  lively  affinity  for  what  he  calls  a  "  soft 
snap."  But  this  is  simply  a  conventional  student  dialect,  — 
a  surface  indication,  which  belies  what  is  underneath.  The 
truth  is  that  the  vast  majority  of  students  in  both  school  and 
college  prefer  to  be  kept  busy,  and  they  have,  both  in  the  long 
run  and  in  the  short  run,  the  greatest  respect  for  the  teacher 
who  gives  them  work  to  do,  insists  upon  their  doing  it, 
and  does  not  seem  over  anxious  to  make  things  easy.  Res 
severa  verum  gaudium  is  the  true  student  motto  the  world 
over. 

I  am  of  course  not  saying  that  of  two  ways  for  accomplish- 
ing a  given  end  the  more  difficult  and  laborious  is  to  be  chosen 
on  the  ground  that  students  after  all  like  to  work,  and  that 
work  is  good  for  them.  By  no  means.  There  are  always 
subjects  enough  to  learn  which  will  tax  one's  strength  all 
that  it  ought  to  be  taxed.  It  is  therefore  always  a  proper  and 
wise  economy  to  select  the  easiest  way  of  attaining  any  given 
result.  What  I  am  arguing  is,  that  when  a  line  of  work  has 
once  proved  its  usefulness,  it  is  not  to  be  discarded  and  spoken 
ill  of  simply  because  the  learner  finds  it  difficult  or  "  dry." 
The  road  which  he  thinks  dry  and  difficult  may  be  precisely 
the  best  road  for  him  to  travel. 

I  come  now  to  the  application  of  the  thought  expressed 
some  time  ago,  which  was,  in  effect,  that  any  controversy  con- 
cerning method  in  teaching  will  usually  be  found  to  have  un- 
derlying it  a  more  important  question  as  to  what  should  be 
taught.  This  is  certainly  true  in  the  case  before  us.  The  issue 
between  the  advocates  of  the  natural  method  and  those  who 
use  the  other  method  does  not  turn  upon  the  comparative 
merits  of  two  ways  for  accomplishing  the  same  purpose ;  it 


18  OBSERVATIONS   UPON   METHOD   IN   THE 

turns  upon  the  comparative  merits  of  two  different  purposes 
to  be  accomplished. 

The  alternative  is  simply  this :  Is  it  best  in  teaching  a 
modern  language  to  make  it  our  chief  aim  that  the  learner 
shall  acquire  some  ability  to  speak  the  language,  or  shall  we 
make  it  our  chief  business  to  teach  him  to  read  the  language 
with  some  scientific  understanding  of  it  ?  If  one  accepts  the 
former  as  the  true  ideal  of  school  and  college  instruction,  then 
it  is  very  certain  that  the  natural  method,  or  any  modification 
of  it  which  affords  the  utmost  possible  practice  in  speaking, 
is  the  best  method.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  one  accepts  the  lat- 
ter as  the  true  ideal,  then  it  is  equally  certain  that  the  other 
method  is  the  better. 

What,  then,  is  the  true  ideal  ?  What  ought  we  to  aim  at 
in  the  teaching  of  a  modern  language  ?  Or  rather,  what  ought 
we  to  aim  at  in  the  teaching  of  a  modern  language  in  school 
and  college  ?  This  limitation  of  the  question  is  of  importance, 
since  the  circumstances  under  which  we  are  compelled  to 
work  in  school  and  college  may  very  possibly  exercise  a  de- 
termining influence  upon  us  when  we  are  attempting  to  decide 
the  questions  what  to  aim  at  and  how  to  go  to  work.  For 
example  :  I  might,  and  very  certainly  I  should,  proceed  in  one 
way  with  a  large  class  of  university  students  whom  I  ex- 
pected to  meet  four  times  a  week,  and  in  quite  another  way 
with  a  child  who  was  to  live  with  me  for  several  years  in  my 
own  family  ;  and  in  still  another  way  with  a  class  of  three  or 
four  whom  I  expected  to  be  with  me  for  several  hours  each 
day.  We  must  look  at  this  question  with  reference  to  the 
circumstances  that  are,  and  forever  must  be,  imposed  upon  us 
in  school  and  college.  German,  for  example,  is  not  begun  by 
our  pupils  in  their  early  childhood,  nor  can  the  study  be  kept 
up  for  ten  or  twelve  years.  In  the  present  crowded  state  of 
our  school  and  collegiate  courses  such  a  thing  is  out  of  the 
question,  and  it  must  forever  remain  out  of  the  question  unless 
it  can  be  shown  that  some  great,  some  very  great  advantage 


TEACHING  OF  MODEKN  LANGUAGES.        19 

would  result  from  it.  In  my  opinion  no  such  showing  will 
ever  be  made.  I  admit,  of  course,  that  if  all  persons  who 
studied  German  in  our  schools  were  to  begin  the  study  in 
childhood,  and  to  begin  it  with  the  expectation  of  keeping  it 
up  through  a  long  succession  of  years,  then  certain  questions 
might  arise  with  regard  to  the  teaching  of  the  language  which 
are  not  now  living  questions  at  all.  I,  however,  am  very  far 
from  thinking  that  such  an  innovation  would  be  desirable. 
So  that  I  can  claim  to  be  discussing  this  subject  here  not 
simply  from  the  standpoint  of  what  is  and  what  is  likely  to 
continue  to  be,  but  also  from  the  standpoint  of  what  ought 
to  be. 

Upon  hearing  this  inquiry,  What  should  be  our  aim  in  the 
teaching  of  German  ?  many  persons,  particularly  those  who  are 
themselves  unschooled,  will  be  inclined  to  answer  at  once  : 
Why,  it  should  be  your  aim  to  impart  to  your  pupil  a  com- 
plete mastery  of  the  language,  so  that  he  can  read,  write,  and 
speak  it ;  can  even  think  in  it,  or  crack  jokes  and  write  verses 
in  it.  But  those  who  have  done  some  work  upon  a  foreign 
language,  and  especially  those  who  have  tried  to  teach  one, 
will  understand  at  once  that  a  programme  of  this  sort  would  be 
simply  what  Mr.  Tilden  called  a  "  barren  ideality."  It  is  of 
no  use  to  hitch  our  wagon  to  a  star  in  that  fashion.  To  learn 
to  speak  any  language  in  any  decent  manner  demands  long 
and  assiduous  practice  in  speaking.  To  learn  to  speak  it  at  all 
well  demands  long  association  with  those  who  speak  it  as 
their  native  tongue.  And  this  requires  time.  To  learn  to 
read  a  language,  again,  requires  long  practice  in  reading.  One 
must  have  read  a  large  number  of  books  from  different  periods 
of  the  language.  He  must  have  acquired  some  first-hand 
familiarity  with  its  literature.  And  this,  again,  requires  time. 
We  have  here  two  different  disciplines.  Now,  if  in  our  school 
work  one  of  these  disciplines  is  accented,  the  other  must  be 
neglected.  There  is  simply  no  other  way,  without  involving 
a  very  much  greater  expenditure  of  time  than  we  now  make. 
Which,  then,  shall  we  accent  ? 


20  OBSERVATIONS  UPON   METHOD   IN  THE 

Among  the  great  unschooled  public  the  ability,  real  or 
apparent,  to  speak  a  foreign  language  undoubtedly  counts  as 
a  great  thing.  They  look  upon  such  ability  as  the  natural 
and  necessary  outcome  of  linguistic  study.  Parents  covet  the 
accomplishment  for  their  children.  For  a  long  time  a  little 
French  was  a  necessary  item  in  the  intellectual  outfit  of  a 
fashionable  young  lady.  All  over  the  country  multitudes  of 
boys  and  girls  are  trying  to  learn  to  speak  German,  and  that 
without  reference  to  any  particular  use  they  expect  to  make 
of  the  acquisition,  but  from  the  general  impression  that  it's  a 
good  thing  to  do.  Very  intelligent  people  are  now  and  then 
found  crying  out  that  it  is  a  disgrace  that  students  should 
pursue  the  study  of  German  four  or  five  years,  and  then  not 
be  able  to  speak  it.  As  if  that,  and  that  only,  were  the  true 
criterion  by  which  to  decide  whether  the  student  has  got  any 
good  from  the  study. 

Well,  now  let  us  inquire  what  is  the  precise  value,  for 
average  graduates  of  our  schools  and  colleges,  of  the  ability 
to  speak  a  foreign  language  ?  I  say  average  graduates,  since 
it  is  obviously  with  reference  to  them  that  we  must  shape  our 
courses  of  study  and  our  methods  of  teaching.  We  cannot 
shape  these  with  reference  to  the  occasional  student  who 
might  wish  to  prepare  for  a  residence  in  Germany  or  for  a 
position  as  German  clerk  in  a  business  house. 

Whatever  value  the  ability  to  speak  a  foreign  language  may 
have  for  average  graduates  ought  to  be  found,  I  should  say, 
along  one  of  two  lines.  Its  value  ought  to  be  either  practical 
or  educational.  I  am  aware  of  no  other  lines  of  importance 
along  which  its  value  ought  reasonably  to  be  sought.  The 
word  "practical"  I  use  here  in  the  manner  of  the  world's 
people  as  synonymous  with  commercial.  That  is,  to  be  sure, 
a  very  vicious  use  of  the  word.  I  would  not  for  a  moment 
admit  that,  even  if  a  much  better  case  could  be  made  out  than 
can  be  for  the  commercial  value  of  the  ability  to  speak  a  for- 
eign language,  that  therefore  we  should  make  the  imparting 


TEACHING  OF  MODERN  LANGUAGES.  21 

of  such  ability  the  chief  aim  of  our  teaching  in  the  schools. 
We  cannot  throw  too  often  or  too  hard  in  the  face  of  the 
public  the  fact  that  our  business  is  educational.  Our  work  is 
the  building  up  and  the  leading  out  of  minds,  and  not  the 
teaching  of  crafts,  trades,  tricks,  and  techniques  to  get  a  liv- 
ing with.  Whatever  has  a  high  educational  value  has  a  high 
practical  value,  since  nothing  is  of  more  practical  moment 
than  the  training  of  minds.  But  using  the  dialect-  of  the 
age,  what  is  to  be  said  of  the  practical,  i.  e.,  commercial,  value 
of  the  ability  to  speak  a  foreign  tongue  ?  This  is  a  matter 
about  which  I  imagine  that  a  good  deal  of  loose  thinking  and 
talking  prevails,  which  have  given  rise  to  misapprehension. 

It  is  of  course  true  that  the  command  of  two  languages  has, 
for  one  who  is  seeking  a  position  in  a  community  where 
there  is  a  large  foreign  population,  a  real  commercial  value. 
To  deny  this  would  be  absurd.  Professional  and  business 
men  are  continually  saying  in  our  hearing,  "  I'd  give  a  thou- 
sand dollars  if  I  could  speak  German."  The  boy  or  the  girl  who 
desires  employment  in  a  city  like  this,  or  like  Detroit,  undoubt- 
edly has  an  advantage  if  able  to  speak  German.  But  what  kind 
of  ability  is  it  that  is  meant  in  such  cases  ?  A  smattering  of 
the  language  will  not  suffice.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  appli- 
cant should  be  able  to  say,  Good-morning !  and  How  do 
you  do  ?  and  What  time  is  it  ?  It  will  not  suffice  if  he  even 
have  at  his  tongue's  end  the  whole  wisdom  of  Ollendorf,  and 
be  able  to  say  ever  so  glibly  that  the  wife  of  the  butcher  is 
more  handsome  than  the  nephew  of  the  baker.  But  he  must 
be  able  to  speak  German;  not  as  school-children  use  that 
phrase,  not  as  it  is  used  by  the  professors  in  summer  schools 
of  languages,  but  as  men  of  business  and  of  the  world  under- 
stand it.  He  must  have,  at  least  for  all  the  purposes  of  the 
position  that  he  seeks,  a  fluent  and  ready  command  of  the 
language. 

But  cannot  this  superior  grade  of  ability  be  imparted  in 
the  schools  ?    Practically  it  cannot.     It  is  indeed  true  that 


22  OBSERVATIONS   UPON  METHOD  IN  THE 

if  any  competent  teacher  were  to  take  a  very  small  class  of 
boys,  all  of  whom  wished  to  become  German  clerks  in  a  dry- 
goods  store,  and  if  he  were  to  meet  them  every  day  for  an 
hour  and  talk  nothing  but  dry-goods  store  to  them  for  a  mat- 
ter of  two  or  three  years,  he  might  thus  contrive  to  give  them 
an  indifferent  preparation  for  entrance  upon  the  duties  of  Ger- 
man clerk  in  a  dry-goods  store.  But  their  preparation  would 
be  none  of  the  best.  They  could  get  a  much  better  one,  and 
that  too  in  less  time,  by  means  of  an  apprenticeship,  or  by 
living  in  a  German  family.  And  then  the  time  has  not  come 
for  managing  our  educational  institutions  on  that  principle. 

But  perhaps  it  may  be  asked  whether  it  is  not  possible,  by 
means  of  general  conversational  instruction  and  practice  in  the 
schools,  to  impart  such  command  of  the  German  language  for 
all  purposes,  that  the  learner  upon  leaving  school  can  fill  any 
position  where  a  knowledge  of  German  is  required?  In 
answer  to  that  question  it  must  be  said  emphatically  that  it 
is  not  possible.  The  conditions  of  the  school  forbid.  The 
teacher  meets  his  pupils  in  classes  (and  these  classes  are 
often  large),  five  hours  or  less  each  week  of  the  school  year. 
Each  pupil  has  a  few  minutes'  practice  on  certain  days  of  the 
week  in  speaking  German.  All  the  rest  of  the  time,  with  his 
teacher,  his  schoolmates,  his  parents  at  home,  he  speaks  Eng- 
lish. Now,  no  one  can  learn  to  speak  a  foreign  language  in 
that  way.  To  do  that  requires  months  or  even  years  of  con- 
stant practice,  through  association  with  those  who  speak  the 
language  as  their  mother  tongue.  You  can  no  more  teach  a 
person  to  speak  a  foreign  language  by  means  of  class  instruc- 
tion given  at  stated  intervals,  than  you  can  teach  him  to  swim 
by  giving  courses  of  illustrated  lectures  in  a  7  X  9  bath-room. 
The  thing  never  has  been  done,  never  will  be  done  by  the 
natural  method  or  by  any  other  method ;  and  any  one  who 
professes  to  be  able  to  do  it  may  be  safely  set  down  as  a 
quack.  I  know  very  well  that  some  rather  striking  results 
can  be  achieved  in  this  direction.     I  have  experimented  with 


TEACHING  OF  MODERN  LANGUAGES.  23 

the  matter  myself,  and  am  familiar  with  the  reports  of  those 
who  have  done  much  more  and  much  better  than  I  can  claim 
to  have  done.  It  is  possible  by  sedulous  attention  to  the  sub- 
ject, continued  through  a  considerable  period  of  time,  to  teach 
a  class  to  speak  German  in  the  class-room  with  tolerable  flu- 
ency and  correctness.  Any  one  not  an  expert  listening  to 
such  a  class  easily  gets  the  impression  that  they  can  really 
handle  the  German  language,  —  can  actually  "  speak  German  " 
in  some  proper  sense  of  the  term.  But  alas,  it  is  only  the 
class-room  dialect  that  they  speak.  Their  discourse  moves  in 
a  very  narrow  range.  They  do  but  say  over  certain  phrases  and 
sentences  and  idioms  that  they  have  heard  and  learned.  Out- 
side of  this  beaten  round  of  expression,  which  they  never  hear 
or  need  to  use  outside  of  the  class-room,  they  are  perfectly 
helpless.  On  the  street,  at  the  store,  in  society,  their  German 
"  conversation  "  leaves  them  in  the  lurch  at  once  when  they 
attempt  to  operate  it.  And  so  they  take  to  using  their 
costly  acquisition  of  foreign  speech  simply  for  purposes  of 
diversion.  They  say,  "  Wie  befinden  Sie  sich"  or  "  Comment 
vous  portez-vous  ?  "  where  they  might  just  as  well  say,  "  How 
are  you  ?  "  and  make  no  further  use  of  their  accomplishment. 
The  simple  truth  is  that  the  attainable  results  in  this  direc- 
tion of  teaching  students  in  the  class-room  to  speak  a  foreign 
language  are  so  insignificant  as  to  be  utterly  devoid  of  any 
practical  value  whatever,  out  in  the  world.  And  so  there  is 
no  use  in  aiming  at  these  results  with  reference  to  their  com- 
mercial value,  even  if  we  were  to  admit  the  propriety  of  teach- 
ing subjects  in  school  and  college  out  of  purely  commercial 
considerations. 

But  what  of  the  educational  value  of  this  acquisition  ?  This 
is  for  us  the  really  important  question.  I  have  spoken  of  its 
supposed  commercial  value  only  for  the  purpose  of  correcting 
what  I  deem  a  common  misapprehension.  I  have  tried  to  show 
that  the  smattering  of  conversational  ability  which  the  schools 
can  impart  is  worthless  on  the  market,  and,  conversely,  that 


24  OBSERVATIONS   UPON  METHOD  IN   THE 

the  kind  of  ability  which  has  a  market  value  is  beyond  the 
reach  of  school  training  to  impart.  If  we  should  attempt  to 
impart  it  by  quadrupling  the  time  given  to  the  study,  and  by 
devoting  all  our  energies  to  teaching  conversation,  we  should 
even  then  be  coming  into  hopeless  competition  with  other 
easier  and  more  expeditious  methods  of  acquiring  the  same 
thing.  One  who  especially  desired  to  learn  to  speak  German 
could  learn  it  so  much  better  by  living  a  few  months  in  a 
German  family.  Furthermore,  in  this  country,  wherever  a 
foreign  population  is  numerous  enough  to  make  a  knowledge 
of  two  languages  commercially  valuable,  there  are  always 
a  multitude  of  boys  and  girls  growing  up  who  are  bilingual 
from  childhood.  They  are  usually  numerous  enough  to  fill  all 
positions  where  their  particular  capacity  is  specially  required. 
Who  would  pass  by  them  to  take  up  with  the  imperfect,  un- 
satisfactory product  of  the  schools  ? 

We  must,  therefore,  it  seems  to  me,  admit  that  if  the  ability 
to  speak  a  foreign  language  has  any  value  that  is  within  the 
reach  of  the  schools,  that  value  must  be  educational.  How  is 
it,  then,  with  regard  to  this  ?  There  is  a  wide-spread  impres- 
sion that  the  ability  to  speak  a  foreign  language  is  in  itself 
an  important  evidence  of  culture,.  It  would  appear  as  if  this 
impression  ought  to  correct  itself  when  one  sees  how  very 
many  people  there  are  in  the  world  who  can  speak  two  or 
more  languages  with  some  fluency,  and  who  are  nevertheless 
without  anything  that  can  properly  be  called  education.  But 
the  impression  does  not  correct  itself.  People  go  on  assuming 
that  any  person  who  can  speak  another  tongue  than  his  native 
one  must  have  passed  through  a  course  of  intellectual  disci- 
pline proportionate  in  value  to  his  fluency  in  speaking.  In 
the  minds  of  many,  — and  even  of  many  who  ought  to  know 
better,  —  fluency  of  speech  is  the  only  criterion  by  which  to 
judge  whether  a  course  of  study  in  a  modern  language  has 
been  profitable. 

Now,  all  this  is  very  erroneous.     The  ability  to  speak  a  for- 


TEACHING  OF  MODERN  LANGUAGES.  25 

eign  language  is  a  matter  of  practice,  not  of  intellectual  disci- 
pline. Proficiency  in  the  accomplishment  depends  simply 
upon  the  opportunity  one  has  had,  and  the  use  one  has  made 
of  his  opportunity,  for  practice.  It  is  a  trick,  a  craft,  a  tech- 
nique, quite  comparable  with  the  ability  to  telegraph,  or  to 
write  short-hand.  It  has  in  itself  only  a  very  slight  and  a 
very  low  educational  value.  Suppose  that  an  English-speaking 
boy  some  day  learns  at  school  that  the  German  for  "All  men 
are  mortal "  is  "  Alle  Menschen  sind  sterblich"  What  has  he 
added  to  his  intellectual  outfit?  Nothing  at  all.  He  has 
simply  got  hold  of  a  new  set  of  symbols  by  which  to  commu- 
nicate, if  necessary,  an  idea  that  was  already  in  his  mind. 
From  an  educational  point  of  view  his  acquisition  is  of  the 
same  order  as  if  he  had  learned  to  tick  off  the  English  words 
on  a  telegraph  instrument,  to  write  them  in  short-hand,  or  to 
set  them  in  type  in  a  printing-office.  But  education  deals 
with  the  getting  of  new  ideas,  with  the  enlargement  of  the 
mental  horizon.  The  thought  that  I  am  here  seeking  to  pre- 
sent finds  a  good  illustration  in  the  ease  with  which  very 
young  children  learn  to  talk  in  a  foreign  language.  If  a  mem- 
ber of  this  club,  ignorant  of  German,  were  to  go  to  Germany 
for  a  year's  residence,  and  to  take  with  him  his  three-year-old 
son ;  and  if  then  he  were  to  engage  a  teacher  for  himself,  and 
work  hard  for  a  year,  making  use  of  all  the  expedients  which 
are  usually  resorted  to  for  the  purpose  of  learning  to  speak 
German,  meanwhile  letting  his  son  play  at  liberty  about  the 
house  and  street,  he  would  find  at  the  end  of  the  year  that  he 
himself  would  be  able  to  speak  German  in  a  halting,  imper- 
fect, unidiomatic,  humiliating  sort  of  way,  which  would  betray 
his  foreign  extraction  at  every  word.  The  little  four-year-old, 
on  the  other  hand,  would  use  the  language,  so  far  as  he  needed 
to  use  language  at  all,  just  like  a  native.  The  reverse  of  this 
depressing  picture  is  that  upon  returning  home  the  child 
would,  at  the  end  of  a  second  year,  completely  have  lost  his 
acquisition,  while  the  father's  would  have  suffered  but  little. 


26  OBSERVATIONS   UPON  METHOD   IN  THE 

This  furnishes  us  with  the  real  argument  against  sending  oui 
children  abroad,  or  putting  them  in  the  charge  of  foreign  gov- 
ernesses, in  order  that  they  may  learn  to  speak  German  and 
French  in  childhood.  The  accomplishment  acquired  with  such 
ease  by  the  little  ones  goes  just  as  easily  as  it  came  when  the 
opportunity  for  constant  practice  is  withdrawn.  The  plan  is 
a  good  one  where  the  circumstances  are  such  that  one  will 
have  through  life  constant  need  and  occasion  to  make  use  of 
the  accomplishment  acquired  thus  in  infancy.  Such  circum- 
stances exist  in  numerous  European  countries.  For  the  grad- 
uates of  our  schools  and  colleges,  however,  circumstances  of 
that  kind  do  not  exist.  Even  if  we  could  in  the  schools 
accomplish  far  more  than  we  really  can  in  the  way  of  impart- 
ing conversational  ability,  it  would  still  not  be  worth  while 
to  make  that  our  chief  aim,  since  we  should  be  perfectly  sure 
that  in  a  few  years  after  leaving  school  our  graduates  would 
lose  through  lack  of  practice  the  accomplishment  so  labori- 
ously acquired.  It  is,  of  course,  no  objection  to  a  study  that 
the  learner  is  going  to  forget  it,  provided  that  the  study  has 
in  itself  an  educational  value,  or  lays  a  foundation  upon  which 
the  learner  can  build  further  all  through  his  after-life.  If  he 
fails  to  build,  that  is  his  own  fault,  and  not  that  of  his  teacher 
or  of  his  schooling.  If  he  forgets  what  he  knew  after  having 
once  got  an  educational  value  out  of  it,  what  of  it  ?  Let  him 
forget  it.  His  forgetting  is  no  sign  that  his  former  study  was 
thrown  away.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  nonsense  talked  and 
written  on  that  subject.  But  if  the  thing  learned  is  without 
educational  value  in  itself,  is  an  accomplishment,  a  technique 
of  the  fingers  or  of  the  vocal  organs,  then  it  is  obviously  a 
very  grave  objection  to  the  teaching  of  it,  if  we  know  that  the 
learner  will  soon  forget  it  through  lack  of  practice.  Who 
would  think  it  good  policy  to  go  to  the  trouble  and  expense  of 
teaching  our  students  telegraphy  or  type-setting  if  it  were 
certain  that  nine-tenths  of  them  would  soon  forget  the  acqui- 
sition through  lack  of  practice  ? 


TEACHING  OF  MODERN   LANGUAGES.  27 

I  conclude,  then,  that  the  educational  value  of  learning  to 
speak  a  foreign  language  is  of  itself  very  small.  There  can, 
however,  be  no  doubt  that  language-study  is  one  of  the  most 
potent  educational  instruments  we  know  anything  about. 
How  is  this  ?  Where  does  this  value  lie,  if  not  in  learning  to 
speak  the  language  ?  Why,  it  lies  in  learning  to  read  it.  It 
lies  in  the  deepening  and  broadening  of  the  mind  that  come 
from  the  introduction  to  a  new  literature.  It  lies  in  the  grad- 
ual working  of  one's  way  into  the  intellectual  life  of  another 
people.  It  lies  in  the  gradual  taking  up  into  one's  own  being 
of  what  has  been  thought  and  felt  by  the  greatest  of  other 
lands  and  of  other  days.  Or,  along  another  line,  it  lies  in  the 
scientific  study  of  the  language  itself,  in  the  consequent  train- 
ing of  the  reason,  of  the  powers  of  observation,  comparison, 
and  synthesis ;  in  short,  in  the  up-building  and  strengthening 
of  the  scientific  intellect.  There  are  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  people  in  the  world  to-day  who  cannot  converse  at  all  in 
German,  in  French,  in  Latin,  or  in  Greek,  but  whose  intellect- 
ual debt  to  one  or  all  of  these  languages  is  nevertheless  simply 
inestimable.  For  myself,  I  can  say  with  perfect  sincerity 
that  I  look  upon  my  own  ability  to  speak  German  simply  as 
an  accomplishment  to  which  I  attach  no  great  importance.  If 
such  a  thing  were  possible  I  would  sell  it  for  money,  and  use 
the  money  to  buy  German  books  with ;  and  it  would  not  take 
an  exorbitant  price  to  buy  it  either.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
what  I  have  got  from  my  ability  to  read  German,  that  is,  my 
debt  to  the  German  genius  through  the  German  language,  I 
would  no  more  part  with  than  I  would  part  with  my  memories 
of  the  past,  my  hopes  for  the  future,  or  any  other  integral 
portion  of  my  soul. 

Such  being  my  views  with  regard  to  language-study  and  the 
source  of  its  value,  my  views  as  to  methods  of  teaching  a  lan- 
guage will  follow  of  themselves.  The  teaching  of  a  modern 
or  of  an  ancient  language  in  school  or  college  should  be 
thorough  and  scientific.    It  should  have  as  its  aim  to  acquaint 


28  TEACHING   OF  MODERN   LANGUAGES. 

the  learner  with  and  fix  in  his  mind  the  fundamental  facts  of 
the  language  and  to  introduce  him  to  its  literature.  In  this 
way  a  foundation  will  be  laid  for  an  acquirement  which  the 
learner  can  go  on  perfecting  and  making  more  and  more  use- 
ful to  himself  through  all  his  after-life.  He  can  be  perfecting 
it  not  simply  when  he  has  a  foreigner  to  talk  with  and  to  bore, 
but  by  himself  in  the  privacy  of  home,  wherever  and  when- 
ever he  can  get  a  book  to  read.  In  the  laying  of  this  founda- 
tion a  certain  amount  of  colloquial  practice  is  desirable.  There 
are  some  things  about  a  language  that  are  needful  to  learn 
which  can  really  be  learned  better  and  faster  in  this  way  than 
in  any  other.  It  is  well  to  give  some  time  to  the  memorizing 
of  phrases,  sentences,  and  idiomatic  peculiarities,  and  to  afford 
oral  practice  in  the  proper  use  of  these.  In  no  other  way  is  a 
true  feeling  for  the  language,  a  proper  Sprachgefuhl,  to  be  ac- 
quired. But  this  work  should  not  be  a  mere  empirical  imita- 
tion of  the  teacher  or  of  the  book.  It  should  appeal  to  the 
learner's  intellect,  as  well  as  store  his  memory  and  discipline 
his  vocal  organs.  Especially  should  it  be  treated  not  as  itself 
the  end  of  study  but  as  a  means  to  an  end,  that  end  being 
linguistic  and  literary  scholarship. 


READING  IN  MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY.1 

BT     PROFESSOR    EDWARD     S.     JOYNES,     UNIVERSITY     OP    SOUTH 

CAROLINA. 

It  is  with  extreme  diffidence  that  I  offer  to  read  a  paper 
before  this  Association.  My  own  teaching  is  done  under  con- 
ditions of  such  disadvantage,  with  students  so  poorly  pre- 
pared and  with  results  so  unsatisfactory,  that  I  cannot  but 
feel  how  presumptuous  it  would  be  in  me  to  attempt  here  to 
teach  those  who  themselves  teach  under  so  much  happier  con- 
ditions and  to  so  much  better  purpose  than  I  can  do.  My  sole 
apology  might  be  an  experience  which,  covering  now  three 
decades  of  language-teaching,  has  passed  through  many 
phases,  both  of  our  professional  activity  at  large  and  of  my 
own  individual  work.  But  these  phases,  for  myself  person- 
ally, have  been  rather  renewals  of  effort  and  of  disappoint- 
ment than  landmarks  of  progress  or  of  triumph;  and  this 
experience,  if  I  could  recount  it,  might  serve  rather  as  a  warn- 
ing than  as  an  example.  So  that  it  is  as  a  seeker  rather  than 
as  a  giver  that  I  come,  to  share  my  counsel  with  my  more  fa- 
vored brethren ;  in  order  that  by  the  confession  of  my  own 
shortcomings,  and  especially  by  the  criticism  and  discussion 
which  this  paper  may  elicit,  I  may  be  helped,  and  so  per- 
chance may  help  others,  to  find  "  the  better  way." 

I  am  conscious,  too,  that  my  argument  is  addressed  not  so 
much  to  the  members  of  this  Association,  who  surely  need  no 
advice  from  me,  as  to  a  wider  circle  of  humbler  teachers  who 

«  Read  before  the  Modern  Lttftif  e  AmooUUoo  of  America,  1889,  and  repriated 
villi  the  pemiMlM  e*  the  i 


3U      READING  IN  MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY. 

may  be  reached  and  perchance  helped  through  this  agency ; 
as  from  the  mountain-tops  may  be  flashed  beacon-lights  to 
those  who  are  laboring  in  the  valleys  below.  I  therefore  rec- 
ognize the  fitness  of  the  reference  of  this  paper  to  the  Peda- 
gogical Section,  which  I  hope  may  more  and  more  engage 
hereafter  the  attention  and  sympathy  of  the  Association. 

In  the  stormier  days  of  a  controversy  now  happily  abated, 
we  have  often  heard  the  reproach  made  —  some  of  us  perhaps 
in  our  "  fighting  moods  "  have  made  it  ourselves  —  against  our 
brethren,  the  classical  teachers,  that  the  great  majority  of 
graduates  wholly  forget  their  Greek  and  Latin  in  after-life. 
Now,  it  might  be  answered  that  so  ungracious  a  charge  carries 
with  it  its  own  refutation.  What  a  man  has  not  learned  he 
cannot  unlearn,  nor  can  he  forget  what  he  has  never  got. 
And  if,  under  any  old-time  method  of  classical  teaching,  stu- 
dents did  not  learn  Greek  and  Latin,  but  only  learned  about 
them,  it  is  not  strange  that  they  should  not  know,  or  use,  or 
love,  these  languages  in  later  life.  Yet,  after  all,  and  at  the 
worst,  this  charge,  if  true,  would  not  prove  that  the  methods 
of  even  such  classical  study  had  failed  to  confer  discipline 
and  culture  of  life-long  benefit,  even  when  the  Latin  inflec- 
tions, or  the  Greek  alphabet  itself,  had  been  entirely  forgot- 
ten. A  far  more  serious  matter  it  would  be,  however,  if  such 
a  charge  could  be  established  against  our  modern  languages. 
For,  apart  from  all  questions  of  method  or  of  relative  value 
in  education,  the  modern  languages,  it  seems,  should  at  least 
be  more  vital  —  I  mean  in  closer  relation  to  our  actual  life  ; 
at  least  comparatively  more  for  use,  and  less  for  discipline 
only;  for  the  creation  of  new  instruments  of  active  power 
rather  than  for  the  mere  training  of  faculty ;  for  the  mani- 
fold needs  of  a  living  present  rather  than  for  even  the  high- 
est communion  with  the  past.  And  if,  under  all  these 
advantages,  a  like  charge  could  be  sustained  against  our 
department,  it  would  be  a  far  more  serious  imputation  upon 
the  value  of  our  work,  or  at  least  upon  the  methods  of  our 
teaching. 


BEADING  IN  MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY.     31 

Now  it  is  precisely  this  charge  which  I  find  myself  com- 
pelled to  make,  against  myself  at  least,  if  not  against  others. 
I  am  fully  aware  of  the  disadvantages  of  my  own  teaching, 
and  of  the  shortcomings  of  my  own  effort  and  performance ; 
yet  I  cannot  believe  my  experience  to  be  wholly  exceptional. 
Let  me  ask  you  to  do  as  I  have  done  again  and  again,  to  my 
sorrow.  Try  your  graduates  of  five,  ten,  fifteen  years  ago. 
Ask  them,  as  you  meet  them  at  commencement  or  elsewhere, 
how  many,  outside  of  professional  scholars,  "keep  up"  their 
French  and  German  ?  How  many  still  read  these  languages  ? 
How  many  love  to  read  them,  or  would  not  prefer  even  a  poor 
translation  ?  How  many  use  them  as  instruments  of  research 
or  information  ?  Into  how  many  lives  have  they  entered  as 
an  abiding  presence  of  sweetness  and  light,  the  perpetual 
heritage  of  a  new  birth  of  intellectual  liberty  and  power  ? 
Or,  by  how  many  have  they  been  disused,  laid  aside,  forgot- 
ten ;  or  used  only  to  read  a  chance  quotation,  and  remembered 
only  as  associated  with  college  tasks  and  the  fading  "  dream 
of  things  that  were  "  ? 

This  is  a  hard  question  —  here  perhaps  an  ungracious,  and 
for  me,  it  may  be,  an  impertinent  one.  But  I  have  been  ask- 
ing it  for  many  years,  and  without  gratifying  answer.  I  want 
my  colleagues  to  ask  it,  —  if  not  of  their  graduates,  at  least  to 
themselves ;  and  to  all  who  can  answer  "  Not  guilty,"  the  ar- 
gument of  this  paper  does  not  apply.  Yet,  I  regret  to  say,  I 
fear  that  the  great  majority  of  all  our  graduates  lay  aside  and 
forget  their  modern  languages,  after  graduation,  to  a  degree 
only  less  complete  because  these  are  perhaps  less  easy  to  for- 
get, than  do  classical  students  lay  aside  and  forget  their 
Greek  and  Latin. 

Now  if  this  is  true,  even  in  any  large  degree,  why  is  it 
true  ?  The  answer  I  believe  is  the  same  in  both  cases : 
because,  instead  of  teaching  modern  languages,  we  spend  so 
much  of  the  limited  time  allowed  us  in  teaching  only  about 
them j  or  in  the  unprofitable  pursuit  of  false  objects  by  false 


32  READING  IN   MODERN   LANGUAGE  STUDY. 

methods ;  and  thus,  like  the  dog  in  the  stream,  snatching  at 
the  shadow,  we  lose  the  substance  and  the  shadow  too. 

Whatever  diverse  views  may  be  maintained  as  to  the  varied 
benefits  of  classical  study,  it  will  surely  be  admitted  that  the 
chief  object  of  the  study,  say  of  French  and  German,  is  to 
know  French  and  German  ;  and  that,  for  the  vast  majority  of 
all  our  students,  the  chief  object  of  knowing  them  is  to  read 
them. 

I  do  not  here  include  private  instruction  for  special  pur- 
poses or  under  special  circumstances,  but  only  such  instruc- 
tion as,  seeking  "  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number," 
should  be  regularly  offered  in  the  organized  classes  of  our 
higher  institutions  of  learning.  And  of  this,  too,  I  speak 
only  within  what  may  be  called  strictly  collegiate  limits, 
meaning  thereby,  in  a  word,  such  study  as  is  general  for 
large  classes  within  definite  courses,  and  not  including  the 
higher  special  —  or  more  strictly  university  —  study,  whose 
highest  law  is  liberty. 

Now,  it  seems  scarcely  to  need  argument,  that  for  this 
"  greatest  number  "  of  all  our  modern  language  students,  in 
school  or  college,  the  u greatest  good"  that  our  teaching  can 
confer  is  the  power  to  ready  with  —  so  far  as  possible  —  the 
love  of  reading.  I  think  this  is  sufficiently  indicated  in  the 
definition  adopted  by  this  Association,  of  the  "  primary  aims  " 
of  such  instruction:  first,  "literary  culture;"  and  then, 
"  philological  scholarship  and  linguistic  discipline."  My  con- 
tention is,  that  that  which  is  here  placed  first  is  not  only  first, 
but  is  by  far  the  most  important,  and  should  have  far  more  at- 
tention, relatively,  than  I  believe  it  now  usually  receives. 

What  is  the  kind  of  reading  which  this  "  literary  culture  " 
implies  ?  In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  accurate  reading;  for 
without  accuracy  there  can  be  no  thorough  intelligence  and, 
of  course,  no  genuine  literary  culture.  And  this  accuracy 
implies  sound  grammatical  knowledge,  and  precise,  often  mi- 
nute, grammatical  criticism.   But  beyond  that,  and  far  beyond 


READING   IN  MODERN   LANGUAGE   STUDY.  33 

that,  it  must  be  reading  which  by  practice  has  grown  to  be 
not  only  intelligent,  accurate,  appreciative,  but  easy  and  pleas- 
urable :  it  must  be  "  Reading  without  Tears."  That  litera- 
ture which  must  be  spelled  out  with  grammar  and  dictionary 
is,  for  the  nonce,  not  literature  at  all ;  and  will  surely  not  be 
read,  after  graduation,  outside  of  professional  circles.  My 
point  is,  we  do  not  read  enough :  it  is  not  quality,  but  quan- 
tity ;  not  depth,  but  range ;  not  knowledge  only,  but  the  ease 
of  practised  habit,  that  is  left  lacking  in  our  results.  Speak- 
ing not  from  my  own  unsatisfactory  experience  only,  but 
judging  so  far  as  I  can  from  the  courses  outlined  in  many  of 
our  foremost  institutions,  we  do  not  read  enough,  not  nearly 
enough,  to  secure  that  easy  command  of  the  foreign  idiom  and 
vocabulary,  that  comfortable  at-homeness  in  the  foreign  at- 
mosphere, which  is  necessary  for  the  appreciation  of  style, 
for  the  enjoyment  of  literature,  or  for  the  free  and  glad  use 
of  these  languages  as  instruments  of  research,  of  culture,  or 
of  power  in  after  life.  Hence  it  follows  that  in  the  mod- 
ern languages,  as  in  Greek  and  Latin,  yet  with  far  more  lam- 
entable loss,  reading  is,  after  graduation,  for  the  most  part 
abandoned  and  forgotten ;  and  French  and  German,  begun  in 
school  and  continued  in  college  as  tasks,  are  remembered  and 
avoided  as  tasks  in  after-life.  That  reading,  I  repeat,  which 
must  be  done  as  a  task,  or  with  any  distinct  consciousness  of 
the  difficulty  of  a  foreign  idiom,  will  not  be  done  at  all,  out- 
side of  professional  objects.  And  so  it  is  that  the  French  and 
German  literatures,  with  all  their  wealth,  all  their  "prom- 
ise and  potency"  of  culture,  of  delight,  of  inspiration,  of 
power,  remain  a  dead  letter  in  the  lives  of  the  vast  major- 
ity of  all  our  college  graduates.  If  this  is  not  true,  I  fain 
would  be  corrected  ;  but  I  fear  it  is  only  too  true* 

If,  then,  this  is  true,  the  remedy  is  that  we  must  read  more, 
and  give  more  prominence  to  reading,  relatively,  in  our  courses 
of  study.  And  if  this  be  recognized  as  the  supremely  impor- 
tant object  to  which  all  others  are  secondary,  we  must,  per- 


34  READING  IN  MODERN  LANGUAGE   STUDY. 

force,  within  our  limited  time,  subordinate  other  objects  to 
which  large  proportions  of  time  and  attention,  though  of 
course  in  varying  degrees,  are  now  habitually  devoted. 
Among  them  I  will  briefly  mention :  — 

I.     THE    FORMAL    STUDY    OF    GRAMMAR. 

This  cannot,  of  course,  be  wholly  eliminated,  but  it  should 
be  reduced  to  a  minimum.  The  grammar  should  be  for  the 
reading,  not  the  reading  for  the  grammar.  Reading  outside 
of  grammar  should  be  begun  at  the  earliest  possible  day,  with 
all  needful  helps  ;  and  the  further  accretion  of  grammatical 
knowledge  should  be  made  to  crystallize  gradually  around  easy, 
interesting,  and  pleasurable  reading.  The  formal  learning  of 
paradigms  and  rules  may  thus,  I  believe,  be  wholly  omitted, 
except  in  largest  outlines.  Nothing  vitalizes  language  study 
like  reading,  even  the  simplest,  outside  of  grammar  rules.  I 
remember  a  boy  who,  after  a  year  of  grammatical  study  of 
Latin  on  the  old  plan  in  school,  came  during  vacation  under 
the  teaching  of  his  sister,  a  bright  Virginia  girl,  who  knew 
nothing  of  the  scholastic  method :  before  the  end  of  the  first 
week  he  exclaimed,  "  Golly,  sister !  I  believe  this  means  some- 
thing "  —  a  commentary  only  too  true  upon  much  of  our  gram- 
mar grinding.  If  I  might  add  a  word  of  personal  experience, 
it  would  be  that  year  by  year,  though  yet  far  from  attaining 
my  ideal,  I  am  more  and  more  impressed  with  the  importance 
of  minimizing  formal  grammar  study.  One  month  of  indis- 
pensable introduction  T  believe  to  be  quite  sufficient.  After 
that,  so  far  as  possible,  the  grammar,  like  the  dictionary, 
should  be  used  as  a  book  of  reference  rather  than  of  formal 
study.  (I  might  add,  that  the  best  grammars  for  this  kind  of 
work  remain  yet  to  be  written.)  The  reading,  thus  early 
begun,  should  be  pushed  more  and  more ;  the  formal  gram- 
mar, more  and  more  subordinated.  I  should  not  need  to  add 
that  at  this  stage  all  points  of  technical  learning,  —  etymol- 
ogy, language-history,  etc.,  except  for  occasional  help,  should 


READING   IN  MODERN  LANGUAGE   STUDY.  35 

be  wholly  omitted.  Yet  right  here  lies  our  temptation.  It 
is  so  easy  to  waste  time  in  displaying  our  own  erudition ;  so 
pleasant  to  astonish  or  amuse  our  pupils ;  so  hard  to  forget 
ourselves  for  their  sake  :  so  easy,  in  a  word,  to  be  a  scholar, 
so  hard  to  be  a  teacher  ! 

II.     EXERCISES    IN    SPEAKING. 

On  this  point  I  shall  say  but  little.  I  fear  I  shall  in  some 
quarters  be  deemed  guilty  of  high  treason  if  I  express  my 
conviction  of  the  utter  worthlessness  of  such  exercises  in  our 
ordinary  college  work.  Of  course,  along  with  the  tongue,  the 
ear  must  be  trained  to  an  accurate  pronunciation,  and  to  the 
appreciation  of  the  beauty  and  rhythm  of  the  original ;  for 
without  this  there  is  no  language,  much  less  literature.  It 
is  important,  also,  to  be  able  to  understand  what  may  be 
added,  for  illustration  or  explanation,  in  the  original  tongue. 
But  as  for  learning  to  speak  in  the  college  class-room,  the  idea 
is  futile,  and  all  the  time  devoted  thereto  is  almost  utterly 
wasted.  Given  a  class,  say  of  twenty-five  to  thirty  members, 
with  three  or  four  hours  a  week,  —  that  is  five  or  ten  minutes 
for  each  individual,  —  and  all,  meanwhile,  reading,  writing, 
speaking,  thinking,  dreaming  English  for  all  the  remaining 
hours  of  day  or  night,  and  their  power  of  intelligent  speech 
in  French  or  German  would  be  trivial  and  futile,  less  than 
"a  younger  brother's  revenue,"  even  if  every  moment  of 
time  throughout  the  college  course  could  be  devoted  to  such 
exercises,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  instruction.  The  result 
would  be  to  leave  the  student,  in  the  language  of  Professor 
Hewitt,  "the  proud  possessor  of  a  few  sentences,  but  without 
any  literary  knowledge  ;  "  or,  as  I  have  myself  elsewhere  said, 
"with  one  phrase  on  almost  every  subject,  and  hardly  two  on 
any."  Whatever  may  be  said  for  the  so-called  "  natural 
method  "  with  individual  pupils,  or  in  private  classes  taught 
under  special  conditions  for  special  objects  (and  here  its 
merits  may  be  great),  yet  for  collegiate  or  even  school  work 


«56  READING   IN  MODERN   LANGUAGE   STUDY. 

proper  it  is  "  a  delusion  and  a  snare."  Who  among  us  has 
not  witnessed  the  helplessness  of  pupils  trained  by  this 
method  for  all  literary  or  higher  linguistic  work  ?  The  condi- 
tions necessary  for  its  usefulness  are  simply  not  practicable 
in  the  ordinary  classes  of  the  school  or  college. 

III.     WRITTEN    COMPOSITION. 

Here  the  weight  of  prescription  and  of  authority  would  seem 
to  be  so  overwhelming  as  to  render  criticism  at  once  impotent 
if  not  impertinent.  Yet  we  should  not  forget  that  this  pre- 
scription comes  to  us  through  the  Latin,  and  from  an  age  when 
the  writing  of  Latin  was  the  necessary  accomplishment  of 
every  educated  person  ;  nor  that  it  is  now  less  than  a  genera- 
tion since  the  like  prescription  in  England  still  insisted  upon 
the  writing  of  Latin  verse :  so  hard  it  is  to  lay  aside  the 
leading-strings  of  a  past  culture,  even  after  we  have  outgrown 
its  infancy.  I  would  not  question  the  indispensableness  of 
writing  to  the  mastery,  or  indeed  even  to  the  accurate  criti- 
cism, of  language ;  still  less  would  I  claim  that  the  highest 
scholarship  in  French  or  German  could  be  attained  without 
the  ability  to  write,  or  even  to  speak,  these  languages.  Yet 
for  how  many  of  us  does  this  "  highest  scholarship "  come 
within  the  remotest  horizon  of  our  teaching  ?  How  many  of 
all  our  pupils  do  we  expect  to  learn,  by  our  exercises,  to  write 
French  and  German  with  any  true  command  of  language, 
much  less  of  style  ;  or,  indeed,  with  anything  beyond  the  most 
barren  grammatical  correctness  ?  But  even  within  this  limit, 
and  far  short  of  any  real  power  of  expression,  all  must  admit 
the  value  of  writing  to  confirm  the  knowledge  and  use  of  the 
grammatical  forms  ;  to  teach  the  force  of  words,  the  value  of 
position,  structure,  emphasis,  etc.  :  so  that,  even  for  thorough 
grammatical  training,  exercise  in  writing  —  I  will  not  say 
composition  —  may  fairly  be  claimed  to  be  indispensable. 
This  I  do  not  deny ;  my  protest  is  against  the  abuse,  not  the 
use,  of  this  exercise, 


BEADING   IN   MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY.  37 

I  insist,  first,  that  it  is  begun  too  early.  To  set  a  pupil  to 
writing  Latin  or  German  who  knows  nothing  of  reading  is  as 
unnatural  and  cruel  as  it  is  unprofitable.  It  reverses  the 
natural  order  of  acquisition,  and  makes  the  beginner's  path, 
which  should  be  lightened  by  every  helpful  device,  literally 
a  pathway  of  tears.  Such  exercise  should  be  reserved  until 
by  actual  use  the  student  has  acquired  some  considerable 
knowledge  of  word-form,  structure,  and  idiom  ;  or,  at  the 
very  least,  until  a  review,  after  the  first  study  of  the 
grammar.  Then,  as  my  boy  said  above,  it  may  "mean 
something,"  and  so  become  really  intelligent  and  helpful. 

Secondly,  I  contend  that  it  is  often  made  unduly  difficult  and 
burdensome,  not  only  by  being  too  early  begun,  but  by  being 
exaggerated  beyond  its  proper  importance,  as  though  it  were 
an  end  unto  itself,  instead  of  being  regarded  —  what  it  really 
should  be  —  as  a  help  to  easier  and  more  accurate  reading.1 
At  present  I  think  I  do  not  exaggerate  when  I  say  that  this 
exercise  is  generally  made  to  occupy  from  one-third  to  one- 
half,  often  even  more,  of  the  time  given  to  the  study  of 
language,  ancient  or  modern;  and  that  by  unreasonable 
methods  of  instruction  and  of  correction  it  is  made  also,  to 
both  pupil  and  teacher,  by  far  the  most  painful  and  discour- 
aging as  well  as  unprofitable  part  of  the  work.  It  would  be  a 
great  gain  for  progress,  as  well  as  for  peace  and  comfort,  if 
this  exercise  could  be  restricted  within  narrower  limits  of 
time,  and  placed  in  its  due  subordination  to  the  higher  objects 
of  reading  and  criticism.  To  a  very  large  extent,  indeed,  its 
purposes  can  be  better  accomplished,  with  less  loss  of  time,  by 
writing  from  oral  dictation  —  which  gives,  besides,  the  need- 
ful training  of  the  ear,  as  of  the  attention,  for  the  understand- 

1  I  beg  leave  here  to  refer  to  the  excellent  essay  of  Professor  Hale  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Chicago,  on  M  The  Art  of  Reading  Latin "  (Ginn  &  Co.),  which,  though 
intended  for  classical  teachers  only,  may  be  almost  equally  helpful  in  the  teaching 
of  modern  languages.  I  make  this  reference  the  more  freely  because  I  cannot  fully 
claim  the  weight  of  this  high  authority  in  favor  of  all  the  points  of  the  present 
paragraph. 


38      BEADING  IN  MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY. 

ing  of  the  spoken  language.  The  time  that  may  here  b© 
saved,  in  my  opinion  without  loss,  should  also  be  devoted  to 
the  supreme  object  of  more  and  better  reading.  Indeed,  I  will 
go  further,  and  venture  to  add  that,  in  courses  which  are  neces- 
sarily elementary  in  scope,  it  would  be  a  wise  economy  to 
omit  composition  altogether. 

IV.    SUBJECTS    OF    HIGHER    OR   SPECIAL   STUDY. 

The  foregoing  remarks  include  subjects  and  methods  appro- 
priate mainly  to  the  school  and  the  lower  classes  of  the  col- 
lege. What  I  shall  now  briefly  add  concerns  rather  the 
higher  or  university  study.  I  refer  to  those  subjects  which  I 
suppose  to  be  included  by  this  Association  in  its  definition,  — 
"  philological  scholarship  and  linguistic  discipline,"  in  addi- 
tion to  "  literary  culture."  Under  these  heads  may  perhaps 
be  roughly  enumerated:  scientific  grammar,  phonetics,  ety- 
mology, special  and  comparative,  language-history,  with  study 
of  older  forms  and  kindred  dialects,  textual  criticism,  the 
details  of  literary  history,  and  so  forth.  Let  no  one  suppose 
that  I  undervalue  the  importance  of  these  things,  however 
much  I  may  regret  my  own  shortcomings  in  the  learning  or 
teaching  of  them.  They  are  the  crown  of  our  discipline,  giv- 
ing to  it  the  dignity  of  a  many-sided  and  ample  science,  and 
touching  at  many  points  the  highest  intellectual  and  moral 
interests  of  man.  My  only  contention  is,  that  these  should 
be  mainly  reserved  for  that  higher  study  which  should  be 
made  rather  the  privilege  of  the  few  than  the  task  of  the 
many ;  for  the  higher  classes  only,  in  our  collegiate  work  ; 
more  properly  and  more  largely  for  post-graduate  or  university 
students :  best  of  all,  for  that  seminary  work  so  admirably 
outlined  by  Professor  White  of  Cornell  at  Philadelphia  in 
1887,  yet  which  I  do  not  believe  to  be  practicable,  or  even 
desirable,  within  ordinary  collegiate  limits.  The  scope  of  the 
subjects  here  included  is  so  large  and  so  important  that  they 
press  with  overwhelming  weight  upon  lower  classes,  not  yet 


READING  IN  MODERN   LANGUAGE   STUDY.  39 

fully  prepared  for  such  study ;  and  for  this  very  reason  there 
is  danger  lest  they  should  prematurely  usurp  the  lion's  share 
of  that  limited  and  precious  time  now  available  for  our 
courses.  Such  topics  —  of  more  distinctly  scientific  import, 
linguistic  or  philological  —  should,  therefore,  be  mainly  re- 
served for  later  study,  or  introduced  into  the  earlier  by 
glimpses  only ;  for  illumination  and  inspiration,  rather  than  as 
an  added  burden  of  work.  I  make  this  plea,  as  I  think,  in 
the  interest  alike  of  the  higher  and  of  the  lower  study ;  to 
leave  the  latter  free  for  the  pursuit  of  its  immediate  and 
more  important  object,  and  to  secure  for  the  former  the 
groundwork  of  an  adequate  preparation.  The  premature  or 
excessive  introduction  of  these  topics  into  early  study  is  one 
of  the  most  dangerous  temptations  of  our  scholarship,  and  is, 
in  my  opinion,  the  chief  reason  why  so  many  of  our  students 
leave  college  not  only  unable  to  read  French  and  German  with 
any  intelligent  appreciation  or  pleasure,  but  already  wearied 
and  alienated  by  such  a  mistaken  study  not  of,  but  about  them.1 
Such  students  are  little  likely  to  return  to  these  languages 
with  any  zest  in  later  life. 

I  claim,  then,  that  far  more  largely  than  is  now  usually  the 
case,  the  chief  work  of  our  school  and  college  courses  in  mod- 
ern languages  should  be  reading,  —  large,  intelligent,  pleasur- 
able, sympathetic    reading  (which  must,  of   course,  also  be 

1  It  is  certainly  true,  as  urged  by  the  Nation  in  its  review  of  President  Lowell's  ad- 
dress before  this  Association,  that  literature  and  language  are  equally  worthy 
objects  of  study,  and  indeed,  in  their  highest  conception,  are  one.  But  this  does 
not  touch  the  argument  of  the  present  paper,  which  concerns  only  the  relative 
weight  that  should  be  assigned  to  each  in  the  (purely  preparatory)  work  of  the  great 
body  of  our  students.  It  is  also  true,  as  stated  in  another  column  of  the  same  issue  of 
the  Nation,  that  the  great  mass  of  college  graduates  do  not  keep  up  the  reading  even  of 
good  English  literature,  —  as,  indeed,  they  do  not  keep  up  any  branch  of  college  study. 
But  this  is  because  they  do  not  choose  to  do  so,  not  because  they  cannot;  they  at 
least  use  English  books  for  all  needed  purposes  of  help  or  information.  I  contend  that 
they  do  not  as  a  rule,  even  to  this  extent,  use  French  or  German,  —  and  because  they 
cannot  —  at  least  except  as  a  difficult  and  disagreeable  task.  The  question  here  is, 
moreover,  something  more  than  one  of  degree  only. 


40  BEADING  IN  MODERN   LANGUAGE  STUDY. 

careful  and  accurate  reading)  ;  and  that  our  chief  object  should 
be,  for  this  main  body  of  our  students,  to  endow  them  with 
the  power  so  to  read  these  languages  that  they  shall  love  to 
read  them,  not  as  a  task  but  as  a  privilege,  and  with  the 
delight  of  literary  insight  and  sympathy,  for  all  the  uses  of 
culture  and  of  service,  as  they  would  read  their  mother  tongue. 
And  in  order  to  impart  this  power,  and,  when  possible,  to 
kindle  this  love,  I  contend  that,  just  so  far  as  may  be  neces- 
sary, all  other  objects  or  methods  should  be  subordinated. 
How  far  such  subordination  may  be  necessary  is,  of  course,  a 
question  of  circumstances  and  conditions,  for  which  I  should 
be  the  last  to  propose  any  unvarying  rule.  Such  questions  of 
practical  pedagogy,  like  all  other  questions  of  intellectual  or 
moral  duty,  are  at  last  personal  questions,  which  every  man 
must  decide  for  himself. 

Finally,  as  to  the  method  of  this  reading,  believing  that  in 
details  each  man  must  make  his  own  methods,  I  will  only 
remark  that  it  should  be,  first,  for  translation.  It  is  vain  to 
decry  this  exercise,  which  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  in  the 
whole  range  of  education.  Translation,  clear,  accurate,  sim- 
ple, adequate  yet  idiomatic,  is  not  only  the  best  test  of  the 
knowledge  of  both  idioms,  but  it  is  a  work  of  art  as  well  as 
of  science  (and,  as  our  President  has  said,  of  conscience  too), 
disciplining  the  highest  powers  of  insight,  skill,  and  taste, 
both  in  thought  and  in  expression.  As  a  training  in  the 
mother  tongue,  it  is  superior  to  all  the  devices  of  rhetoric. 
President  Eliot  has  somewhere  said,  though  in  other  and  bet- 
ter words,  that  the  power  rightly  to  understand  and  to  use 
the  mother  tongue  is  the  consummate  flower  of  all  education. 
So  we  should  not  debar  our  study  of  modern  languages  from 
this  high  ministry,  for  which  it  is  so  conspicuously  fitted. 
There  is  no  other  discipline  incident  to  language-study  so 
valuable  as  translation  rightly  conceived ;  yet  there  is  noth- 
ing more  harmful  than  those  miserable  verbal  paraphrases 
which,  under  the  utterly  false  name  of  "  literal  translation," 


READING  IN  MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY.      41 

are  so  often  not  only  allowed  but  required.1  Such  method  is 
false  alike  to  the  foreign  and  to  the  native  language.  Only 
idiom  can  translate  idiom,  or  style  translate  style.  And  if  it 
be  urged  that  no  translation  can  be  fully  adequate,  I  answer 
that  no  otherwise  can  this  truth  be  so  sharply  taught,  or  so 
deeply  felt,  as  by  the  effort  to  reproduce  the  perfect  forms  of 
a  foreign  literature  in  our  own  language  :  — it  is  only  by  doing 
our  best  that  we  can  truly  conceive  the  ideal  and  the  unattain- 
able. We  must  insist,  also,  that  for  this  American  people 
there  is  only  one  mother  tongue,  to  which  all  other  languages 
are  alike  foreign,  and  to  be  studied  as  such,  by  its  norms,  and 
largely,  too,  for  its  sake.  It  were  better  that  our  students 
should  never  know  other  languages  than  use  them  to  debauch 
their  English.  I  insist,  then,  upon  the  prime  necessity  and 
value  of  good  translation,  within  appropriate  limits. 

But,  secondly,  it  is  equally  clear  that  our  students  should, 
finally,  learn  to  read  without  translation.  No  one  has  ever 
truly  read  any  foreign  literature  who  has  read  it  only  through 
a  translation  —  his  own  or  any  other.  At  best  such  reading 
is  only  at  second  hand,  and,  in  the  work  of  our  students,  is 
usually  very  imperfect.  Translation  is  essential  at  first,  as 
is  the  scaffolding  to  the  building  of  a  house  ;  but  no  house  is 
finished  or  sightly  until  the  scaffolding  is  removed.  So,  no 
reading  is  adequate  until  it  can  be  understood  at  first  hand, 
and  in  the  form  of  the  original.  In  other  words,  the  student 
must  learn  to  think  and  to  feel,  if  not  productively,  at  least 
receptively,  in  and  through  the  foreign  language.  Then 
only  can  he  truly  know  or  feel  its  literature.  How  this  trans- 
formation shall   be   accomplished,  at  what   stage   begun,  by 

1  Since  the  above  was  written,  I  have  seen  an  amusing  description  of  an  old-time 
teacher  who,  in  the  lines  of  Horace,  Epod.  II.,  31 :  — 

"  Aut  trudit  acres  hinc  et  hinc  multa  cane 
Apros  in  obstantes  plagas," 

insisted  that  multa  cane  should  be  rendered  (literally !)  toith  much  dog.  Some  of  my 
colleagues  in  the  Association  maybe  surprised  to  learn  that  this  style  ia  by  no  meana 
f«t  confined  to  the  "  rural  districts." 


42  READING  IN  MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY. 

what  methods  promoted,  is  one  of  the  most  important  ques- 
tions of  our  pedagogy.1  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  it  implies  a 
new  birth  of  intellectual  power,  and  that  without  it  the  best 
results  of  language-study  are  impossible. 

What  to  read  was  twenty  to  thirty  years  ago  a  question  of 
supply.  Now,  thanks  to  the  intelligent  zeal  of  our  publishers, 
it  is  a  question  of  selection.  Such  selection  might,  however, 
be  much  aided,  for  remote  and  less-experienced  teachers,  if 
the  publishers'  catalogues  gave  generally,  as  is  already  done 
in  some  cases,  a  careful  description  of  the  kind  of  each  edition  ; 
whether  for  primary,  intermediate,  or  advanced  work.  Besides 
this  there  is  only  one  remark  of  so  general  application  as  to 
justify  mention  here.  This  is,  that  beyond  books  intended 
for  the  very  earliest  use,  editions  with  vocabularies,  except 
such  as  are  special  or  technological,  are  not  to  be  commended.( 
These  vocabularies,  unless  very  elaborate,  and  then  expensive, 
are  apt  to  be  incomplete,  or  at  least  limited  in  scope.  But 
even  the  best  is  only  a  poor  substitute  for  a  good  dictionary, 
the  essential  feature  being,  usually,  that  the  student  is  helped 
to  the  required  meaning,  instead  of  having  to  select  it  for 
himself.  Such  spoon-diet  is  proper  only  as  u  milk  for  babes." 
Beyond  babyhood,  the  student  should  be  trained  to  the  right 
use  of  the  dictionary,  as  well  as  of  the  grammar  and  other 
sources  of  information.  This  remark  has  seemed  to  be  justi- 
fied here  by  the  increasing  number  of  such  labor-saving  editions 
"  with  vocabulary." 

And  now,  having  detained  you  already  too  long,  I  ask  to  be 
indulged  in  a  few  words  more.  During  more  than  twenty 
years  of  active  work  as  a  teacher  of  modern  languages,  I  have 
seen  our  profession  pass  through  many  phases.  At  first  we 
were  fighting  for  a  bare  recognition  in  the  scheme  of  liberal 
study.     This  victory  won,  we  had  then  to  witness  the  war  of 

1  Again  I  take  the  liberty  of  referring  to  Professor  Hale's  "  Essay  on  the  Art  of 
Reading  Latin,"  which  I  most  gladly  commend  to  all  teachers  of  modern  language. 


READING   IN   MODERN   LANGUAGE   STUDY.  43 

"  methods,"  until  we  are  now,  I  trust,  happily  past  that  stage 
of  our  progress.  As  I  review  the  scene  of  so  much  discussion 
and  experiment,  and  look  forward  to  the  bright  promise  of  the 
new  day,  which  I  have  lived  to  welcome,  if  not  to  enjoy,  there 
seem  to  me  to  be  two  tendencies  —  two  remaining  perils  —  on 
which  I  may  be  permitted  to  add  a  word  of  experience  and  of 
warning.  The  first  is  the  bread-and-butter  theory.  This,  I 
hope,  may  be  here  briefly  dismissed.  Bread  is  indispensable, 
and  butter,  however  thin,  is  to  most  of  us  a  very  acceptable 
addition.  But  these  are  not  recognized  by  this  Association, 
and  should  not  be  recognized  by  ourselves  professionally,  as 
among  the  primary  and  direct  objects  of  our  work.  However 
the  learning  of  modern  languages  may  be  made  to  serve  this 
necessary  and  worthy  purpose  in  private  classes,  in  summer 
schools,  or  under  other  arrangements  for  special  objects,  we 
must  see  to  it  that  such  views  shall  not  usurp  a  leading  place 
in  our  institutions  of  higher  learning.  In  the  purview  of  our 
teaching,  the  life  must  be  more  than  meat,  and  the  body  more 
than  raiment.  On  this  point,  I  am  sure,  it  is  not  necessary 
here  to  insist. 

The  danger  which  I  more  fear,  just  now,  comes  from  the 
opposite  direction  —  from  the  excess  of  what  I  cannot  better 
describe  than  as  erudition  in  the  school  room.  I  refer  to  the 
tendency —  I  fear,  the  growing  tendency  — to  obtrude  the  meth- 
ods and  requirements  of  erudite  or  special  study  into  our  ele- 
mentary teaching  and  text-books.  This  may  be  at  present 
only  a  wholesome  reaction  from  former  more  trivial  methods 
—  the  lustiness  of  a  giant  only  lately  liberated  from  chains; 
but  it  indicates  a  peril  which,  if  not  arrested  by  sound  reason, 
will  be  hurtful  alike  to  the  thoroughness  and  to  the  modesty  of 
true  scholarship.  The  field  of  this  danger  lies  less  within  the 
scope  of  this  Association  than  in  the  lower  schools  ;  but  the 
warning,  if  at  all  justified,  is  not  the  less  appropriate  here, 
because  to  the  members  of  this  Association  the  humbler  teach- 
ers will  naturally  look  for  the  standards  as  well  as  the  instru- 


44  READING  IN   MODERN   LANGUAGE  STUDY. 

ments  of  their  work.  The  time  was,  and  not  very  long  ago, 
when  we  made  this  reproach  against  the  classicists.  Yet  now, 
by  strange  reaction,  we  see  them  seeking,  more  and  more, 
better  and  more  reasonable  methods,  and  producing  easier  and 
more  teachable  text-books  ;  while  we,  on  our  part,  seem  to  be 
hastening  to  occupy  the  cloudy  eminence  which  they  are  wisely 
trying  to  vacate.  In  this  tendency  I  see  a  real  danger  to 
modern  language  study.  In  the  pride  of  a  triumphant  scholar- 
ship we  forget  the  requirements  of  a  reasonable  pedagogy; 
or,  from  the  standpoint  of  another  native  tongue,  we  forget  or 
ignore  the  needs  of  the  English  pupil ;  — or  we  fail  clearly  to 
draw  the  line  between  the  critical  work  of  the  advanced  student 
and  the  wants  of  the  untrained  beginner.  I  see  these  indica- 
tions in  some  of  our  modern  books ;  and  I  must  infer  that 
they  exist  also  in  many  of  our  class-rooms.  I  do  not  by  any 
means  despise  erudition,  or  critical  scholarship,  or  critical 
teaching ;  but  they  have  their  place,  as  they  have  their  value. 
We  must  draw  the  line  clearly  and  broadly,  in  our  editing  as 
well  as  in  our  teaching,  between  advanced  and  elementary 
work  ;  or  we  shall  soon  have  no  good  school  books,  and  no 
good  schools.  If  by  the  premature  and  injudicious  obtrusion 
of  learned  methods  or  results  we  make  the  beginnings  of 
modern  language  study  harsh  and  repulsive,  we  shall  under- 
mine the  foundations  of  our  discipline,  and  shall  then  vainly 
attempt  to  build  any  worthy  superstructure.  Let  us  resist  the 
temptations  of  intellectual  pride.  Let  us  remember  that  in 
teaching,  if  anywhere,  ars  est  celare  artem  ;  —  that  the  highest 
triumph  of  erudition,  in  the  school  book  or  in  the  school  room, 
is  in  the  most  masterful  helpfulness  ;  and  that  he  who  would 
lead  the  children  of  knowledge,  as  of  faith,  must  himself 
become  as  a  little  child. 


THE  NATURAL  METHOD.1 

PROFESSOR   W.    T.    HEWETT,    CORNELL    UNIVERSITY. 

The  advocates  of  the  "  natural"  method  of  teaching  mod- 
ern languages  have  apparently  captured  the  citadel  of  the 
argument  by  the  name  which  they  have  chosen  for  their  sys- 
tem, and  the  question  arises,  —  What  is  the  natural  method  of 
teaching  or  acquiring  language  ? 

The  answer  is :  "  Learn  a  language  as  a  child  learns  its 
mother  tongue."  If  this  statement  embodies  the  essence  of 
this  mode  of  instruction,  we  must  ask  what  is  the  process  by 
which  a  child  learns  to  speak?  It  is  surrounded  by  the 
speech  of  its  country.  There  is  no  blurring  or  obscuring  of 
impressions :  one  sound  and  only  one  is  associated  with  every 
object  or  action.  The  child  assigns  a  certain  meaning  to  a 
tone  of  the  voice  before  it  knows  a  single  word.  By  the  appli- 
cation of  certain  sounds  to  particular  things  it  learns  the 
names  of  persons  and  of  objects.  By  repetition  memory  fixes 
the  sound  as  the  representative  of  an  idea.  Words  of  de- 
scription introduce  the  notion  of  quality,  of  good  and  bad,  of 
color,  heat,  and  size.  Verbs  of  incomplete  predication,  and 
picture-words,  give  the  idea  of  actions,  and  the  relations  of 
substance  and  quality.  The  conception  of  time  follows,  and 
adverbs  indicate  the  mode  of  verbal  action.  Nouns  as  the 
objects  of  verbs  and  prepositions  follow.  The  child  passes 
from  the  generic  to  the  specific,  from  applying  a  single  term 
to  all  animals,  to  discriminating  the  characteristics  of  each. 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Academy,  Dec.  1886,  with  the  permission  of  the  publisher. 


46  THE  NATURAL  METHOD. 

Terms  descriptive  of  physical  objects  are  broadened  in  mean- 
ing to  have  a  secondary  and  spiritual  signification.  Many 
expressions  in  the  vocabulary  of  both  the  child  and  the  man 
have  been  learned  without  even  truly  analyzing  them.  Stere- 
otyped, hereditary  forms  are  adopted  without  any  conscious 
mental  action.  This  is,  in  brief,  the  process  of  the  child's  de- 
velopment in  language  in  its  own  home  and  country.  But 
the  condition  of  pupils  who  begin  the  study  of  a  foreign  lan- 
guage in  this  country  is  different.  They  already  possess  a 
vocabulary  fixed  in  the  memory  ;  every  word  suggests  at  once 
an  object  or  action  or  quality.  The  mind  is  full  of  the  images 
of  things.  The  steps  of  the  child's  development  cannot  be 
repeated  exactly  in  later  study.  The  process  must  be  differ- 
ent, —  new  names  must  be  associated  with  familiar  things ; 
terms  in  part  arbitrary  and  in  part  natural  must  be  acquired, 
so  that  they  come  at  command  at  the  sight  of  the  object ;  or 
kindred  words  in  a  changed  form  must  be  learned.  The  child 
must  at  the  same  time  retain  and  constantly  use  all  its  former 
store  of  words.  It  cannot  be  transported  into  a  foreign  world 
for  more  than  an  hour  or  two  a  day,  or  a  few  hours  a  week. 
The  years  through  which  a  child  grows  into  the  life  and 
spirit  of  its  mother  tongue,  attaining  even  then  but  a  limited 
vocabulary,  cannot  be  repeated.  More  rapid  results  are  pos- 
sible, and  methods  corresponding  to  the  awakened  powers  of 
the  child  must  be  employed. 

The  "natural"  method,  strictly  followed,  would  require 
that  all  instruction  should  be  oral,  by  objects  and  by  forms 
presented  to  the  eye.  But  in  advanced  instruction  we  can- 
not stop  here ;  other  methods  must  be  employed  to  keep  pace 
with  the  mind's  expansion  and  its  developed  powers.  We 
should  ignore  most  important  methods  of  training  in  use  in 
the  acquisition  of  other  branches  of  knowledge,  if  we  stopped 
with  the  oral,  or  "  natural "  method.  That  method  is  alone 
natural  which  takes  cognizance  of  a  pupil's  surroundings,  his 
purposes  in  life,  his  object  in  acquiring  the  language,  and  his 


THE  NATURAL  METHOD.  47 

intellectual  capabilities  in  learning.  The  mind  generalizes; 
the  principles  of  language  admit  of  condensed  statement ;  the 
facts  must  be  grouped  in  rules  which  enunciate  the  usages 
of  the  language,  if  they  are  to  be  retained.  Systematic  gram- 
mar is  necessary,  and  language  must  be  studied  as  the  em- 
bodiment of  thought,  the  philosophy  of  expression,  in  order 
to  secure  the  highest  culture.  The  mode  in  which  a  thought 
is  conceived,  the  subtle  influence  of  particles,  prefixes,  and 
suffixes,  must  form  a  part  of  the  training  in  language.  Lan- 
guage thus  studied  affords  a  valuable  discipline,  and  indirectly 
prepares  the  way  for  the  study  of  logic  and  philosophy. 

What  is  natural  at  one  period  of  life  is  not  natural,  in  the 
sense  of  being  adapted,  to  all  periods  of  study.  The  scholar 
of  disciplined  mind  who  seeks  to  master  a  language  by  the 
natural  method  alone,  would  make  limited  progress.  The 
gift  of  generalization,  of  comparison  of  forms,  and  of  insight 
into  kindred  words,  would  be  sacrificed  by  adopting  the 
method  of  the  child.  The  scientific  method  of  teaching 
language  requires  that  all  the  powers  should  be  enlisted  in 
the  work.  Hence  any  exclusive  system  will  fail  to  accomplish 
the  highest  results,  and  will  overlook  essential  facts  of  intel- 
lectual growth.  That  method  which  evokes  all  the  powers  of 
the  pupil's  mind  is  the  best ;  the  ear,  the  voice,  and  the  eye 
must  alike  be  taught,  and  this  triple  object  must  be  kept  in 
view  throughout  the  course.  Analogy  is  a  suggestive  and 
ever-active  principle  in  the  acquisition  of  language ;  and  a 
knowledge  of  related  words,  inflections,  and  principles  in  one 
language  facilitates  the  mastery  of  every  other.  A  knowledge 
of  Latin  is  a  key  to  the  attainment  of  all  the  Romance  lan- 
guages ;  but  only  a  clear  and  comprehensive  knowledge  of  its 
Words  and  forms  will  facilitate  an  acquaintance  with  the 
derivative  tongues.  A  superficial,  speaking  knowledge  of 
German  does  not  contribute  to  the  knowledge  of  Anglo-Saxon 
and  of  English  speech,  while  a  scientific  knowledge  is  a  most 
valuable  aid.     A  defect  of  the  so-rt,alled  "  natural "  method  is 


48  THE  NATUKAL   METHOD. 

that  it  appeals  to  the  memory  exclusively,  and,  unless  supple- 
mented by  other  methods,  leaves  the  student  with  a  bare 
knowledge  of  the  idioms  taught,  but  destitute  of  the  principles 
and  analogies  of  the  language,  beyond  those  imparted  by  oral 
practice.  Students  so  taught  are  often  deficient  in  a  systematic 
knowledge  of  the  inflections,  and  their  subsequent  progress  is 
less  thorough  than  that  of  pupils  who  have  been  trained  by 
established  methods. 

The  culture  of  the  memory  alone  never  made  a  great  scholar : 
a  knowledge  of  several  languages  learned  familiarly  where 
they  are  spoken,  fails  in  itself  to  give  intellectual  culture. 
The  knowledge  of  German  possessed  by  the  children  of  Ger- 
man parents,  born  in  this  country,  is  often  an  obstacle  to  the 
thorough  study  of  their  native  tongue.  A  facility  in  phrases 
is  often  accompanied  by  a  real  failure  to  discriminate  properly 
the  meaning  of  words  in  English.  Those  delicate  distinctions 
in  thought  existing  in  a  language  are  often  lost  in  the  case 
of  students  to  whom  both  languages  are  alike.  One  language 
seems  to  displace  the  other,  as  Hamerton  holds,  and  to  make 
the  possessor  insensible  to  subtle  shades  of  meaning.  Even 
in  the  case  of  great  scholars  who  seem  to  know  equally  the 
language  and  literature  of  two  nations,  the  idioms  of  one 
language  are  often  transferred  unconsciously  to  the  other. 
If  we  examine  the  results  achieved  by  American  students 
who  have  resided  abroad,  we  are  confirmed  in  our  view  of  the 
limited  value  of  the  acquisition  of  a  language  mainly  by  in- 
tercourse, without  thorough  systematic  study.  Many  who 
have  taken  a  degree  at  a  foreign  university,  and  mingled 
intimately  with  the  people,  but  who  have  devoted  themselves 
to  pursuits  other  than  the  language  itself,  have  acquired  only 
an  uncertain  facility  in  speaking  and  writing.  If  this  is  the 
case  with  students  who  have  resided  abroad,  being  daily  in  a 
foreign  atmosphere,  hearing  in  lectures  and  conversation  only 
the  language  of  the  country,  it  is  true  by  a  stronger  reasoning 
of  pupils  in  this  country  who  enjoy  but  an  hour  or  two  of 


THE  NATURAL  METHOD.  49 

instruction  per  day  in  a  foreign  language,  and  speak  and  write 
and  think  the  remainder  of  the  time  in  English.  Students 
study  the  modern  languages  mainly  for  an  acquaintance  with 
the  literature  ;  the  time  which  can  be  devoted  to  it  is  limited. 
If  all  the  available  time  were  consumed  in  studying  by  the 
oral  method,  a  knowledge  of  the  literature,  and  the  discipline 
which  comes  from  thorough  study  of  the  language,  would  be 
lost.  A  teacher  who  employed  exclusively  the  oral  method 
would  fail  to  call  into  exercise  some  of  the  highest  powers  of 
the  pupil,  and  the  results  would  be  meagre  and  unsatisfying. 
The  oral  method  should  be  assigned  to  its  true  place.  It  is 
an  important  and  valuable  aid  in  training  the  ear  to  under- 
stand the  spoken  language,  and  the  organs  of  speech  to  pro- 
nounce correctly.  Translation  at  hearing  is  an  admirable 
accompaniment  of  linguistic  instruction,  and  should  be  prac- 
tised constantly  in  the  study  of  language.  If  familiar  expla- 
nations and  lectures  in  the  language  itself  are  given,  it  will 
form  a  useful  auxiliary  to  any  course. 

It  is  fallacious  to  hope  to  impart  to  all  students  the  ability 
to  speak  a  foreign  language  fluently.  Few  would  have  occa- 
sion to  use  the  language  if  acquired.  It  is  therefore  unwise 
to  insist  upon  a  speaking  knowledge  as  the  end  of  the  study. 
It  is  a  valuable  aid  in  the  mastery  of  grammatical  forms,  and 
a  key  to  a  facile  acquaintance  with  the  literature.  Indeed,  a 
true  appreciation  of  poetry,  as  well  as  its  expression,  is  im- 
possible without  the  feeling  which  comes  from  an  inner  knowl- 
edge of  the  spirit  as  well  as  of  the  sounds  of  the  language. 

The  manifest  merit  of  the  natural  method  should  not  be 
obscured  by  the  exclusive  claim  that  it  is  a  substitute  for, 
and  should  displace  other  recognized  and  approved  systems 
of  instruction.  As  an  accompaniment  of  higher  study,  it 
will  perform  a  useful  and  possibly  indispensable  ofuce. 


These  notes  are  simply  what  they  are  called,  —  notes  of  the  writer's  experi- 
ence in  teaching  French.  The  methods  suggested  for  the  various 
parts  of  the  work  may  not  be  the  best;  they  can  certainly  be  im- 
proved on ;  but  they  have  proved  fruitful  of  good  results,  and  have 
been  adopted  by  some  other  teachers  with  equal  success. 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

BY  PROFESSOR    F.  C.  DE   SUMICHRAST,  HARVARD    UNIVERSITY. 

in  general;  the  teacher;  pronunciation;  ground-work; 
sight-reading;  composition;  memorizing;  dictation;  speak- 
ing FRENCH;  CONVERSATION  CLASSES;  CLASSIC  WRITERS. 

IN   GENERAL. 

Few  changes  in  education  are  more  striking  than  the  growth 
and  development  of  the  study  of  modern  languages.  The  time 
has  long  since  gone  by  when  Latin  was  practically  the  only 
medium  of  intercommunication  between  learned  men  in  differ- 
ent branches  of  knowledge ;  when  philosophers,  theologians, 
and  scientists  made  use  of  the  language  of  Cicero  to  commu- 
nicate to  each  other  their  discoveries  or  their  opinions.  A 
common  language  does  not  at  present  exist ;  whether  it  ever 
will  do  so  is  a  question  which  may  be  left  out  of  consideration 
for  the  moment.  It  is  plain  that,  with  the  strong  patriotic 
feeling  exhibited  by  the  great  nations  of  the  world,  neither 
English,  German,  nor  French  will  be  universally  accepted  as 
the  language  of  general  intercourse.  A  student  of  the  present 
day  who  desires  to  be  thoroughly  equipped,  must  therefore 
possess  more  than  an  elementary  knowledge ;  he  must  have  a 
good  command  of  those  foreign  languages  in  which  so  many 
and  so  valuable  works  have  been  and  are  being  produced. 

This  alone,  to  say  nothing  of  the  splendor  of  French  litera- 
ture in  past  centuries,  must  compel  attention  to  the  importance 

Copyright,  1892,  F.  C.  de  Sumichraat, 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH.       51 

of  the  methods  employed  in  teaching  the  language.  The  old 
system  of  spending  a  very  long  time  in  picking  out,  word  by 
word,  the  sense  of  a  short  passage,  selected  generally  from  a 
somewhat  tedious  and  uninteresting  work,  —  tedious  and  un- 
interesting precisely  because  it  was  not  studied  or  treated  in 
the  way  that  its  merits  demanded,  —  could  jiot  possibly  induce 
men  to  pursue  their  studies  with  anything  like  the  enthusiasm 
that  must  be  excited  if  rapid  and  satisfactory  progress  is  to 
be  made. 

To  know  French,  —  and  in  these  notes  it  is  French  simply 
that  will  be  treated  of,  —  to  know  French  is  not  simply  to  be 
acquainted  with  the  elements  of  the  grammar,  and  to  have 
read,  with  more  or  less  trouble  and  difficulty,  one  or  two  texts 
selected  from  the  many  treasures  which  the  literature  of  France 
possesses ;  but  it  is  to  have  a  real  acquaintance  with  the  genius 
and  forms  of  the  language ;  to  penetrate  into  the  spirit  of  the 
literature  ;  to  become  familiar  with  the  modes  of  thought  and 
the  manner  of  expressing  them  ;  to  feel,  in  a  word,  that  instead 
of  a  hesitating  progress,  such  as  that  of  a  child  tottering  in 
his  walk,  one's  onward  march  is  firm  and  decided  as  that  of 
the  grown  man  who  presses  forward  to  a  distinct,  clearly 
denned  goal. 

There  are,  broadly  speaking,  two  ways  in  which  the  study 
of  the  French  language  may  be  conducted.  The  one  which 
has  just  been  alluded  to  consists  in  minute  and  over-careful 
attention  to  every  detail  from  the  very  outset,  demanding  an 
accurate  comprehension  of  every  point  as  it  comes  up.  This 
method  assumes  that  in  the  acquisition  of  the  French  lan- 
guage the  intellect  is  capable  of  doing  what  it  absolutely 
refuses  to  do  in  any  other  branch  of  knowledge.  In  none 
would  it  find  it  possible  to  grasp  at  once,  fully  and  com- 
pletely, and  to  retain  permanently,  every  detail  as  it  presents 
itself. 

The  other  method  is  intended  to  lead  the  student  to  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  language,  such  as  that  of  the  child  when 


52       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

it  first  begins  to  learn  words,  to  distinguish  things,  and  to  give 
them  names.  The  idea  which  underlies  this  theory  is  a  cap- 
tivating one.  Its  very  simplicity  attracts  sympathy  and  ap- 
proval, and  at  first  sight  it  seems  as  though  it  were  the 
one  right  and  proper  mode  of  imparting  a  knowledge  of  the 
French  tongue  in  a  manner  which  will  be  at  once  agreeable 
and  effectual.  It  is  not,  however,  capable  of  fulfilling  all  that 
is  claimed  for  or  expected  of  it.  The  child  learning  to  lisp 
its  own  mother  tongue  is  a  different  being  intellectually  from 
the  student  whose  mind  has  been  more  or  less  thoroughly 
trained,  and  who  is  capable  of  very  much  greater  effort ;  who 
understands  the  value  of  time ;  who  is  anxious  to  progress ; 
who  wishes  to  become  master  of  the  language  in  as  short  a 
time  as  possible. 

Any  system  which  aims  at  thorough  teaching  of  French, 
which  seeks  to  combine  simplicity  of  method  with  accuracy 
of  knowledge  and  rapidity  of  grasp,  cannot  leave  out  of  sight 
the  facts  that  the  grammar  bears  a  most  important  relation 
to  the  language ;  that  the  literature  is,  after  all,  the  one  great 
treasure-house  which  must  be  opened  to  the  student ;  that  the 
best  teachers  will  be  the  great  writers,  classical  and  modern; 
that  the  student's  vocabulary  will  be  most  usefully  and  most 
rapidly  enlarged  by  the  perusal  of  numerous  works  by  the 
best  authors. 

Another  point  is,  that  precisely  the  same  course  cannot 
be  followed  in  its  entirety  with  every  learner.  Purposes  are 
different.  Some  may  wish  to  acquire  simply  reading  knowl- 
edge ;  others  to  add  to  this  some  slight  conversational  facility, 
to  be  developed  subsequently  by  residence  in  France,  or  inter- 
course with  French  people.  Others,  again,  are  anxious  to 
make  a  thorough  study  of  the  language,  and  to  become  fully 
acquainted  with  its  resources  and  riches. 

Taking,  then,  the  grammar  as  the  basis  of  the  work,  the 
question  arises,  How  should  that  grammar  be  taught  ?  The 
use  of  a  text-book  becomes  a  necessity,  and  of  text-bookf 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OP  FRENCH.       53 

there  is,  of  course,  no  end.  Admirable  grammars  in  the 
French  language  are  to  be  had  quite  easily.  Very  good 
grammars  written  in  English,  Methods  or  Courses  of  greater 
or  less  excellence,  to  say  nothing  of  the  very  numerous  books 
which  are  mere  collections  of  clippings  from  other  works  — 
are  ready  to  the  hand ;  and  it  would  seem  as  though  every 
possible  system  had  been  tried  by  which  an  acquisition  of  the 
elements  of  the  language  might  be  facilitated.  And  yet, 
while  recognizing  the  value  of  many  books  which  have  become 
standard  in  educational  institutions,  teachers  and  students 
alike  are  forced  to  recognize  the  fact  that  of  all  the  gram- 
mars or  methods  published,  there  is  not  yet  one  the  author 
of  which  has  grasped  the  principle  which  must  underlie  any 
grammatical  text-book  intended  to  be  used  by  Americans  or 
Englishmen  in  the  study  of  French.  The  general  plan  of  the 
grammars,  properly  so  called,  is  simply  that  on  which  gram- 
mars written  for  French  pupils  are  constructed^  Chapters  on 
the  article,  the  substantive,  the  adjective,  the  pronoun,  the  verb, 
the  adverb,  the  preposition,  the  conjunction,  and  the  interjec- 
tion, follow  each  other  in  regular  procession,  as  a  preface  to 
that  body  of  rules  which,  with  its  not  infrequent  exceptions, 
forms  the  French  syntax.  The  Methods  do  not,  as  a  rule, 
conform  strictly  to  this  arrangement,  although  they  also  begin 
with  that  old  friend,  the  article,  which,  from  being  placed  in 
the  very  fore  front  of  the  instruction,  assumes  an  importance 
which  certainly  should  never  have  belonged  to  it;  a  fact 
so  well  recognized  by  students  in  general,  that  they  very 
speedily  forget  all  they  learned  about  the  combinations  of  the 
article  and  the  preposition,  and  even  when  far  advanced  in 
their  studies  continue  to  translate  literally  "of  the"  and  "to 
the  "  by  de  le,  a  le,  de  les  and  a  les.  A  further  fault  of 
Methods,  probably  inseparable  from  the  plan,  is  that  a  certain 
difficulty  is  experienced  in  referring  to  particular  rules  re- 
quired to  elucidate  difficulties  which  must  constantly  present 
themselves  to  an  English-speaking  student. 


54       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

The  fact  that  it  is  English-speaking  people  who  are  to  be 
taught  the  French  language,  gives  the  key  to  the  true  method 
of  teaching. 

This  will  be  better  understood,  perhaps,  by  an  illustration 
taken  from  actual  practice  in  teaching. 

A  constant  stumbling-block  to  English-speaking  students  is 
the  agreement  of  the  article  and  adjective  with  the  substan- 
tive in  French.  Theoretically,  the  rule  is  alike  in  both  lan- 
guages ;  practically,  there  is  nothing  in  English  to  show  the 
agreement.  In  other  words,  the  substantive  in  French  has 
a  visible  effect  upon  article  and  adjective;  it  has  none  in 
English.  This  is  an  important  difference,  which  must  be 
taught  at  the  outset ;  and  the  plan  adopted  by  the  writer  is  as 
follows :  — 

On  the  blackboard  are  written  two  English  substantives :  — 

Boy.  Girl. 

and  the  class  informs  the  teacher  that  the  first  is  masculine 
singular,  and  the  second  feminine  singular. 

Below  each  is  then  written  the  French  word :  — 

Garcon.  Fille. 

and  the  class  is  then  asked  to  supply  a  definite  article  for 
each  noun :  — 

The  boy.  The  girl. 

Attention  is  at  once  drawn  to  the  fact  that  the  form  of  the 
article  is  identical  in  each  case ;  then  the  French  comes  :  — 

The  boy,  The  girl, 

Le  garcon.  La  fille. 

A  difference  in  form;  impossible  to  mistake  one  for  the 
other.    Add  an  adjective,  say  "  good  :  "  — 

The  good  boy.  The  good  girl. 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OP  FRENCH.       55 

No  difference  ia  the  form  of  the  adjective,  anymore  than  in 
that  of  the  article ;  but  note  the  French  :  — 

The  good  boy,  The  good  girl, 

Le  bon  garcon.  La  bonne  fille. 

Here  again  the  adjective  changes  its  form  and  clearly  indi- 
cates the  gender. 

Now  comes  number.  The  rule  in  both  languages  is  alike  : 
add  s  for  the  plural  (exceptions  disregarded  at  the  outset) ; 

so :  — 

Boys,  Girls, 

Garcons.  Filles. 

Add  first  the  article  and  next  the  adjective,  and  the  English 
shows  no  change  whatever  in  these  words,  although  they  are 
plural  j  but  the  French  plainly  indicates  difference  in  gender 
and  number:  — 

The  good  boys,  The  good  girls, 

Les  bons  garcons.  Les  bonnes  filles. 

The  fact  can  now  be,  is  now  impressed  upon  the  student 
that  the  agreement  of  the  article  and  the  adjective  with  the 
substantive  means  something  visible  in  French,  —  an  operation 
to  be  performed ;  a  change  to  be  effected.  And  the  lesson  is 
repeated  with  the  possessive  adjective,  the  demonstrative,  the 
interrogative,  and,  again,  with  the  pronoun,  whether  personal, 
possessive,  demonstrative,  or  relative ;  and  the  idea  sinks  into 
the  mind  and  stays  there. 

This  is  not  a  grammar,  or  a  method  either,  else  it  would  be 
proper  to  show  how  many  points  can  thus  be  made  clear  and 
striking.  Besides,  they  will  readily  occur  to  any  one  familiar 
with  both  tongues  and  teaching  them.  The  supposedly  ter- 
rible French  "  irregular  "  verb  can  be  stripped  of  its  terrors 
even  more  emphatically. 

The  grammar  of  the  language  must  be  learned  in  conjunction 
with  as  large  a  number  as  possible  of  words  in  common  use,  in 


56       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

order  to  form  a  vocabulary  by  means  of  which  the  student  will 
in  a  comparatively  short  space  of  time  be  enabled  not  merely 
to  read  ordinary  French  with  facility  but  to  translate  English 
into  French,  and,  at  no  distant  time,  to  express  directly  in 
French  the  thoughts  which  he  wishes  to  utter.  The  two  lan- 
guages, English  and  French,  are  not  only  dissimilar  in  their 
origin ;  they  are  essentially  distinct  in  their  genius  and  modes 
of  expression.  What  is  important  in  the  one  is  less  so  in  the 
other.  The  English-speaking  student  employs,  naturally,  the 
modes  of  thought  and  of  expression  which  he  has  learned 
from  childhood,  and  these  differ  so  greatly  from  the  French 
that,  unless  the  fact  is  borne  in  mind  constantly  in  the  course 
of  teaching,  it  is  not  French  that  will  be  given,  but  a  bastard 
dialect  which  has  nothing  whatever  to  recommend  it  save  an 
occasional  quaint  turn  or  absurd  mistranslation. 

To  teach  French  as  it  should  be  taught  necessarily  involves 
on  the  part  of  the  teacher  a  thorough  knowledge  of  both  tongues. 
How  else  is  he  to  seize  the  characteristic  points  of  each,  and 
to  present  them  clearly  and  definitely,  so  that  they  may  be 
readily  grasped  by  the  intelligence  of  his  students  ?  The 
object,  then,  is  to  dwell  less  upon  those  points  of  grammar 
which  are  alike  in  the  two  languages,  than  to  impress  strongly 
the  differences,  so  that  the  characteristic  features  of  the  lan- 
guage will  be  thoroughly  learned,  and  become  part  and  parcel 
of  the  intellectual  stock-in-trade  of  the  student,  which  he  can 
call  upon  readily  at  any  time  without  fear  of  becoming  obscure 
or  unintelligible.  This  is  the  very  basis  of  successful  teaching 
which  aims  at  bringing  on  a  pupil  rapidly,  while  grounding 
him  thoroughly.  Every  part  of  the  work  may  be  turned  to 
advantage  in  this  respect ;  not  merely  those  grammatical  exer- 
cises which  are  necessary  to  impress  upon  the  mind  the 
particular  points  they  illustrate,  but  such  spoken  sentences, 
such  ordinary  expressions,  as  may,  and  indeed  should,  be  used 
from  the  outset  to  accustom  the  ear  and  the  understanding 
alike  to  the  different  language  which  it  is  seeking  to  acquire. 


NOTES   ON   THE  TEACHING   OF   FRENCH.  57 

And  also  the  reading  of  French  itself,  which  should  never  be 
made  an  unpleasant,  ungrateful  task,  involving  an  amount  of 
labor  which  simply  destroys  any  possible  interest  in  the  work 
itself,  —  not  that  French,  any  more  than  anything  else,  can  be 
acquired  without  labor  and  difficulty ;  but  what  is  meant  is 
that  mere  labor  for  labor's  sake  should  not  be  allowed  to  pre- 
vail in  the  system  pursued  ;  that  it  should  be  definitely  kept 
in  view  that  the  work  is  to  bring  results  encouraging  to  the 
student ;  for  no  matter  how  excellent  the  teacher,  how  thor- 
oughly equipped,  how  interesting  in  his  illustrations,  how 
clear  and  precise  in  his  expressions,  it  is  not  he  who  is  to 
acquire  the  language,  it  is  not  he  who  can  put  it  into  the 
mind  of  the  learner,  but  it  is  that  learner  who  must  by  his 
own  work  make  himself  the  possessor  of  the  stores  of  knowl- 
edge presented  to  him. 

THE   TEACHER. 

It  has  been  said  above  that  "  to  teach  French  as  it  should 
be  taught  necessarily  involves  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  both  tongues."  This  point  is  worth 
considering  a  little  more  fully. 

Macaulay  says,  in  effect,  that  no  man  can  ever  acquire  a 
foreign  language  perfectly;  experience  proves  the  contrary. 
It  is  possible  to  know  two  languages  thoroughly,  and,  given  a 
good  "ear,"  to  pronounce  in  both  accurately.  But  perfect 
pronunciation  of  the  language  to  be  taught  is  a  necessity ;  one 
may  sin  in  English,  but  not  in  French.  Here  is  a  difficulty 
in  the  way  of  American  teachers  ;  a  serious  one.  Here  is  now 
a  difficulty  in  the  way  of  foreign  born  teachers,  —  imperfect 
knowledge  of  English,  and  consequent  confusion  in  explana- 
tions given  in  that  tongue. 

Which  is  the  better,  then,  the  American  or  the  French  born 
teacher  ?  The  odds  are  now,  and  always  will  be,  in  favor  of 
the  latter,  provided  he  knows  English  well,  so  as  to  under- 
stand the  spirit  of  the  language,  and  to  make  plain,  quite  plain, 


58       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

his  meaning  when,  perforce,  his  explanations  must  be  given  in 
English.  But  if  an  American  has  really  mastered  French, 
and  by  a  residence  abroad  has  succeeded  in  speaking  it  fluently 
and  pronouncing  it  correctly,  he  is  the  equal  of  the  Frenchman 
for  all  that  part  of  the  work  which  does  not  include  literature. 
The  spirit  of  the  literature  is  not  to  be  so  easily  appropriated. 

Too  strong  a  warning  can  scarcely  be  given  to  Frenchmen 
who,  because  they  know,  as  the  saying  is,  their  mother  tongue, 
imagine  they  can  teach  it,  and  readily  seek  and  obtain  positions 
in  which  they  at  least  have  a  chance  of  learning  English,  if 
they  do  not  teach  much  French.  An  intelligent  knowledge 
of  English  is  a  requisite. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  fact  that  a  man  is  an  American 
gives  him  absolutely  no  advantage  over  the  foreigner,  so  far  as 
handling  a  class  goes,  or  in  the  placing  himself  en  rapport  with 
the  students.  These  gifts  do  not  pertain  to  any  one  national- 
ity, and  an  American  may  prove  a  flat  failure  as  well  as  a 
foreigner.  The  only  advantage  he  has,  if  it  be  one,  is  that  he 
can  talk  English  easily  ;  and  when  troubled  with  his  acquired 
French  can  take  refuge  in  that ;  but  the  student  suffers  more 
retardation  in  his  progress  from  good  English  than  from  good 
French,  and  the  foreigner  can  at  least  talk  that. 

In  brief,  the  question  of  nationality  has  absolutely  no 
business  in  this  matter ;  personal  fitness  alone  should  be  the 
test. 

The  business  of  the  teacher  is  strictly  that  of  helper,  espe- 
cially in  the  beginnings  of  the  study.  He  can  only  make  plain, 
but  that  he  must  do,  whatever  presents  any  difficulty ;  he  can 
only  intelligently  discuss  whatever  points  present  themselves 
to  his  mind  or  that  of  the  pupils  ;  he  can  only  show  how  best 
to  attack  and  solve  a  particular  problem,  indicate  why  certain 
turns,  certain  forms,  are  used  in  preference  to  others ;  he  must 
remove  from  the  minds  of  the  students  that  very  absurd  but 
deep-rooted  belief  that  every  foreign  language  should  in  all 
respects  conform  to  the  structure  of  English,  and  that  where 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH.       50 

differences  occur,  as  occur  of  course  they  must,  there  is  some- 
thing radically  wrong  about  that  foreign  language.  Whatever 
is  essentially  different  between  the  two  must  be  dwelt  upon 
and  made  absolutely  clear.  In  a  word,  the  teacher  must  strive 
from  the  outset  to  make  the  learners  understand  the  genius 
of  the  language,  and  induce  them,  by  every  means  in  his  power, 
to  become  as  familiar  as  may  be  with  it.  This  method,  if 
conscientiously,  carefully,  and  diligently  pursued,  will,  in  every 
case,  result  not  only  in  a  rapidity  of  progress  fairly  astonish- 
ing to  adherents  of  the  older  methods,  but  in  a  much  more 
intimate  acquaintance  with,  and  a  greater  grasp  of,  the  forms 
peculiar  to  French  than  is  possible  in  any  other  way.  This 
grammatical  teaching  must  be  done,  as  has  been  observed,  not 
only  by  intelligent  explanation,  —  repeated  as  often  as  is  neces- 
sary, and  that  will  always  be  oftener  than  most  teachers  think 
it  necessary,  —  but  by  careful  reading  and  writing  of  exercises 
by  the  pupils.  There  is  nothing  which  so  firmly  impresses  a 
point  on  the  mind  as  a  written  exercise  upon  it,  and  nothing 
which  will  enable  the  pupil  to  make  satisfactory  progress  more 
than  attention  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  to  the  correctness  of 
that  written  work.  This,  no  doubt,  involves  on  his  part  an 
amount  of  labor  which,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred, 
will  be  considered  useless  drudgery  ;  but  it  is  not :  it  is  a  ne- 
cessary part  of  the  business,  which  must  be  done  as  faithfully 
as  another.  It  is  not  showy,  it  is  not  interesting  perhaps ;  but 
it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  the  student  should  not  be 
permitted  to  carry  away  uncorrected  work,  if  by  any  means 
within  the  power  of  the  teacher  that  work  can  be  made  per- 
fect. Besides,  every  instructor  of  experience  will  agree  that 
the  mistakes  of  the  students  are  the  helps  of  the  teacher. 

A  man  most  thoroughly  at  home  in  two  or  more  languages, 
and  such  men  are  by  no  means  rare,  may  not  always  recognize 
at  the  first  glance  the  peculiar  difficulties  which  a  learner  has 
to  contend  with  ;  what  to  him  is  exceedingly  simple  and  plain, 
may  be,  and  very  likely  is,  exceedingly  obscure  and  difficult  to 


60       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

another;  and  it  is  only  by  constant  study  of  the  errors  com- 
mitted by  students  that  the  teacher  can  perfect  himself  in  the 
work  he  has  undertaken.  If,  therefore,  he  avoids  the  study  of 
those  mistakes,  whether  made  in  recitation  or  in  written  exer- 
cises, he  voluntarily  casts  away  a  most  important  means  of 
promoting  his  own  success. 

PRONUNCIATION. 

Beading  must,  or  should,  be  taken  up  almost  at  the  begin' 
ning,  and  here,  of  course,  a  very  grave  difficulty  presents  itself, 
that  of  pronunciation.  Most  grammars  and  Methods  prepared 
for  use  in  American  or  British  colleges  and  schools  contain  a 
prefatory  chapter  purporting  to  give,  approximately  at  all 
events,  the  pronunciation  of  French  sounds.  No  doubt  a 
demand  has  arisen  for  some  such  help  to  those  who  are  unable 
to  obtain  the  pronunciation  from  some  one  well  qualified,  but 
a  moment's  reflection  will  show  the  hopelessness  of  attempting 
to  learn  or  teach  pronunciation  by  such  means.  If  all  persons 
were  equally  trained  to  speak  their  own  language,  English,  for 
instance,  correctly  and  properly,  and  if,  in  addition,  they  all 
possessed  the  power  of  distinguishing  differences  of  sound, 
which  are  as  marked  to  the  trained  ear  as  difference  of  notes 
in  music ;  and  if,  further,  combinations  of  English  letters  could 
always  be  relied  on  to  give  exactly  the  same  sound,  then  pro* 
nunciation  could  be  taught  by  such  means ;  or  if  Bell's  "  Visible 
Speech  "  were  universally  employed  in  all  schools  and  colleges 
as  an  available  and  additional  aid  to  the  teaching  of  languages, 
it  would  be  easy  to  print  directions  which,  carefully  followed, 
would  enable  the  student  to  pronounce  French  correctly  ;  but 
facts  are  all  the  other  way.  Of  the  thousands  of  students  who 
annually  begin  the  study  of  a  foreign  language,  a  very  large 
proportion  pronounce  their  mother  tongue  in  a  most  peculiar 
manner.  The  ear  has  to  be  trained,  and  the  learner  has  to  be 
5id  of  another  idea  commonly  implanted  in  his  brain,  —  that 
Because  a  language  is  foreign  it  must  be,  necessarily,  intricate 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH.       61 

in  its  pronunciation.  Practically,  unless  the  vocal  organs  or 
the  "  ear  "  of  an  individual  are  defective,  there  should  be  no 
difficulty  in  any  one  pronouncing  correctly  any  ordinary  modern 
language,  leaving  out  of  the  question  that  characteristic  tone 
which  we  call  the  accent,  and  which  betrays  so  quickly  the 
mother-tongue*  of  the  speaker. 

Pronunciation,  therefore,  must  be  taught  at  present  orally) 
if  it  is  to  approximate  to  the  correct  sound ;  and  it  is  well 
worth  while  spending  some  little  time  on  this  point,  in  order 
to  encourage  the  learner  to  make  use  of  sounds  with  which  he 
is  somewhat  unfamiliar,  and  to  break  down  that  wide-spread 
objection  to  hearing  one's  self  make  mistakes.  Still,  for  those 
who  merely  desire  a  reading  knowledge,  as  well  as  for  those 
who  wish  to  speak  the  language,  there  is  no  necessity  for 
dwelling  at  too  great  length  at  the  outset  upon  the  obtaining 
of  a  correct  pronunciation ;  that  is  only  a  matter  of  time  :  it  is 
little  by  little  that  the  new  sounds  will  be  acquired  and  pro- 
nounced fluently.  Much  reading  aloud  is  desirable,  but  still 
more  desirable  is  a  great  deal  of  reading,  of  that  reading  which 
will  furnish  the  student  with  a  varied  and  useful  vocabulary, 
and  make  him  acquainted  with  turns  of  expression,  with  forms 
of  phrase,  with  syntactical  constructions,  and  idiomatic  com- 
binations. Beading  not  carried  on  in  microscopic  fashion  by 
carefully  turning  up  every  word  in  the  dictionary,  but  based 
upon  the  fact  that  there  are  many  words  identical,  or  nearly 
so,  in  form  and  meaning  in  both  languages,  thanks  to  that 
long  intercourse  between  England  and  France  which  brought 
about,  in  the  language  of  the  former  country,  the  use  of  many 
French  words,  or  of  words  derived  from  the  Latin  through  the 
French. 

SIGHT-READING.  —  COMPOSITION. 

Sight-reading,  in  short,  is  what  must  be  aimed  at  quite  early. 
Even  if  the  instructor  has  to  explain  many  a  locution  and 
many  a  word,  he  must  first  and  foremost  interest  his  students ; 


62       NOTES  ON  TR^  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

he  must  create  in  them  a  desire  to  know  more ;  and  for  that 
purpose  he  must  not  keep  them  dwelling  upon  any  one  point 
so  long  that  their  attention  lags  through  fatigue.  There  exist 
in  French  works  enough  of  the  character  particularly  suited 
to  this  plan  of  study,  works  which  can  be  put  into  the  hands 
of  young  people  with  the  utmost  safety,  and  which  they  will 
enjoy,  because  to  the  interest  of  the  story  itself  is  added  the 
charm  of  that  artistic  style  for  which  French  writers  are 
noted  above  all  others,  and  which  makes  itself  felt  even  by 
those  who  cannot  fully  appreciate  the  beauties  of  the  work 
they  are  studying. 

This  is  no  mere  hypothesis,  no  mere  theory,  but  the  result 
of  experience.  Students  do  begin  the  study  of  French  with- 
out knowing  a  word  of  the  language,  without  having  the  faint- 
est notion  of  its  genius  or  construction,  who,  in  the  brief  space 
of  four  months,  are  able  to  translate  at  sight  a  piece  of  or- 
dinary French ;  are  able  to  follow  intelligently  the  reading, 
by  an  instructor,  of  a  French  book  which  they  have  not  pre- 
viously opened ;  and  who,  before  their  first  year  of  study  has 
elapsed,  can  of  themselves  enjoy  the  perusal  of  many  charm- 
ing stories  which,  under  the  old  plan  of  carefully  digging 
out  and  polishing  every  word,  with  the  assistance  of  that 
frequently  misleading  authority,  the  dictionary,  would  have 
remained  closed  to  them  for  many  years ;  would,  indeed,  have 
never  been  sought  by  them,  because  long  before  they  could 
have  acquired  any  facility  in  reading,  they  would  have  been 
disgusted  and  driven  from  the  study  by  the  numerous  obstacles 
and  difficulties  that  presented  themselves.  Let  it  be  remem- 
bered, also,  that  with  the  acquisition  of  a  vocabulary  of  French 
words,  with  the  familiarity  thus  gained  with  French  idioms 
and  constructions,  comes  naturally  the  power  of  constructing 
in  good  French  what  one  has  to  say.  The  translation  of 
English  into  French,  or  French  composition  as  it  is  usually 
called,  should  also  be  carried  on  on  similar  principles,  though 
here,  of  course,  the  effort  required  will  be  a  harder  one,  and 


NOTES   ON   THE   TEACHING   OF   FRENCH.  63 

the  progress  cannot  be  expected  to  be  quite  as  rapid ;  for  there 
is  great  difficulty  in  persuading  students  to  abandon  the  use 
of  those  forms  to  which  they  are  wedded  from  childhood  for 
those  which  are  new  to  them,  and  the  vigor  and  force  of  which 
they  neither  grasp  nor  appreciate  readily.  But  after  a  time 
it  will  be  found,  if  the  system  of  carefully  explaining  on  every 
occasion  the  essential  differences  between  the  two  languages 
is  followed,  that  it  is  possible  to  do  in  French  composition 
what  has  been  done  already  in  French  reading;  namely,  to 
take  an  English  work  and  translate  it  at  sight  into  good 
French.  Such  a  result  should  be  attained  with  college 
students  of  ordinary  intelligence,  willing  to  give  up  a  suffi- 
cient amount  of  time  to  the  preparation  of  their  work,  in  the 
course  of  a  couple  of  years.  By  this  time  their  reading  of 
French  books  should  have  made  them  familiar  with  a  large 
number  of  the  simpler  works  of  good  authors,  and  they  should 
be  prepared  to  enter  upon  the  study  of  the  literature  as  a  lit- 
erature with  just  as  much  interest  as  they  would  take  in  the 
literature  of  their  own  language ;  feeling  themselves  capable 
of  understanding  intelligently  a  lecture  delivered  in  French, 
or  of  following  readily  the  reading  of  a  play,  an  oration,  or  a 
discourse,  and  of  perceiving  the  beauties  which  the  classic  age 
of  French  literature,  the  philosophical  period  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  the  splendid  cycle  of  the  nineteenth,  present. 

GROUNDWORK. 

Qui  trop  embrasse,  mal  etreint.  If  a  student  is  to  learn 
French,  let  not  the  whole  grammar,  accidence,  and  syntax,  all 
the  idioms  of  the  language,  all  the  difficulties  of  pronunciation 
be  poured  into  him  at  once.  The  fault  of  many  grammars, 
methods,  introductions,  and  teachers,  is  a  desire  to  be  erudite 
and  to  show  how  much  the  author  or  instructor  knows.  There 
are  even  some  of  the  latter  who  would  feel  unhappy  if  they 
were  inhibited  from  exhibiting  their  scholarship. 

Enough  is  enough,  and  too  much  should  never  be  expected 


64       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

or  asked  of  a  pupil,  young  or  old.  If  in  the  course  of  two 
years  in  a  preparatory  school,  or  of  one  year  in  college  (stu- 
dents more  mature  and  capable  of  being  driven  harder),  a  solid 
groundwork  has  been  laid,  success  has  been  attained.  The 
knowledge  of  broad  outlines,  the  main  points  of  the  gram- 
matical structure  of  the  language,  a  moderate  but  well-acquired 
vocabulary,  the  power  to  understand  easy  spoken  French,  the 
ability  to  compose  in  simplest  French,  these  are  the  points  to 
be  sought  after,  the  ends  to  be  attained.  In  succeeding  years 
it  is  easy  to  build  up  on  such  a  foundation ;  to  add,  progres- 
sively, needed  details  ;  to  fill  in  the  outline,  and  to  make  the 
pupil  know  French,  that  is,  use  it  easily. 

It  is  desirable  to  avoid  excess  of  detail  at  first,  and  yet  it 
is  this  excess  of  detail  that  is  most  noticeable  in  text-books. 
It  is  of  very  little  practical  importance  to  place  before  the 
beginner  all  the  varieties  of  use  of  the  preposition  de,  for 
instance;  or  all  the  exceptions  to  the  general  rule  for  the 
formation  of  the  plural  of  substantives;  or  long  lists  of 
adjectives,  the  feminine  of  which  is  irregular;  or,  finally, 
pages  of  verbs,  most  of  which  he  will  not  come  across  more 
than  once  or  twice,  if  at  all,  during  his  first  year  or  two  of 
study.  It  simply  bothers  and  torments  a  student  to  have  a 
number  of  forms  and  rules  set  before  him  which  he  can  neither 
understand,  digest,  nor  remember.  Elementary  work  should 
be  elementary ;  free  from  all  trace  of  erudition  ;  free  from  all 
that  is  not  absolutely  necessary. 

To  illustrate :  A  beginner  in  French  is  in  the  same  condi- 
tion as  a  stranger  dropped  by  train  or  steamer  in  one  of  our 
large  cities.  He  starts  out  from  his  hotel  for  a  walk,  goes 
through  a  number  of  streets,  notices  only  a  few,  a  very  few,  of 
the  principal  buildings  and  monuments,  and  usually  cannot 
quite  tell  how  he  got  from  one  point  to  another.  The  second 
day  he  marks  some  points  near  his  hotel,  gets  a  better  idea  of 
the  lay  of  the  city ;  in  the  course  of  a  week  he  knows  the 
main  thoroughfares,  and  probably  does  not  board  too  often  the 


NOTES   ON  THE  TEACHING   OF   FRENCH.  65 

wrong  street-car.  But  if  lie  becomes  a  resident,  it  takes  him 
still  a  good  deal  of  time  before  he  is  quite  familiar  with  the 
highways  and  byways  of  the  place,  before  he  learns  the  short 
cuts,  and  gets  to  know  the  best  stores.  He  acquires  his  knowl- 
edge progressively,  and  would  be  very  much  amused  were  he 
furnished  with  a  map  and  directory,  and  told  to  get  up  all  the 
streets  and  most  of  the  addresses  before  venturing  out ;  or 
even  were  he  told  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  know  the  names 
of  all  the  residents  in  the  street  he  inhabits. 

Few  rules,  therefore,  should  be  given  a  learner  at  the  outset. 
Text-books  crammed  full  of  information  are  favored  by  insuf- 
ficiently prepared  or  indifferent  and  lazy  teachers.  They  rely 
on  the  book ;  they  cram  the  book  down  the  pupil's  throat ; 
they  close  his  mouth  with  it  when  he  asks  a  question  —  the 
book  is  everything.  Well,  that  is  quite  wrong !  No  book  can 
teach  like  a  living  man  or  woman ;  no  printed  page  can  explain 
as  pleasantly  and  interestingly  as  a  well-posted,  earnest  teacher. 
The  book  is  dead  matter  —  the  living  being  is  preferable  when 
living  beings  are  to  be  instructed.  The  teacher  himself  must 
be  the  text-book  ;  he,  not  the  printed  pages,  must  be  the  spring 
of  knowledge  for  the  students.  Text-books  are  very  useful, 
very  necessary,  but  not  indispensable  for  beginners.  A  good 
teacher  with  a  small  class  could  wholly  dispense  with  a  printed 
grammar  or  method,  and  give  all  the  instruction,  rules  and 
exercises  to  boot,  himself.  A  text-book  is  an  aid,  and  a  sec- 
ondary one,  and  should,  therefore,  never  usurp  the  first 
place. 

Even  with  few  rules,  the  simple,  needed  ones,  much  repeti- 
tion must  be  resorted  to.  It  cannot  be  helped;  it  is  not 
exhilarating  to  the  teacher,  but  it  is  indispensable  for  the 
pupil.  And  when  the  teacher  feels  the  least  inclination  to 
impatience,  because  a  rule,  a  remark  already  many  times  re- 
peated, has  been  apparently  forgotten,  just  let  him  remember, 
or,  if  he  cannot  remember,  let  him  be  absolutely  sure  that  he, 
when  learning,  forgot  just  as  readily  the  very  same  things,  and 


66  NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

many  more  perhaps.  Then  quietly,  pleasantly,  gladly,  give 
the  needed  information. 

It  takes  no  more  time  to  repeat  information  than  to  get 
mad  because  it  has  been  forgotten.  And  it  is  pleasanter  all 
round. 

Teachers  —  and  men  in  general  —  are  apt  not  to  observe 
themselves  closely  enough,  and,  therefore,  to  ascribe  stupidity, 
carelessness,  laziness,  to  pupils  when  they  themselves  are 
really  in  fault.  There  are,  of  course,  and  always  will  be, 
stupid,  careless,  and  lazy  boys  and  girls,  young  men  and 
maidens,  men  and  women ;  but  the  proportion  of  these  is  by 
no  means  so  large  as  some  instructors  would  maintain.  What 
is  apparently  stupidity  in  many  a  pupil,  is,  in  reality,  lack  of 
clearness  in  the  teaching.  If  difficulties  are  not  clearly  and 
intelligently  explained,  the  student  cannot  master  them,  and 
the  fault  is  not  his  at  all.  This  is  very  much  more  frequently 
the,  case  than  many  imagine.  The  writer  has  seen  a  great 
deal  of  teaching,  not  of  French  only,  and  has  been  amazed 
at  the  numerous  imperfections  of  teachers  visited  upon  the 
heads  of  pupils.  Carelessness  in  pupils  often  arises  from 
carelessness  in  the  teacher ;  and  laziness  visible  in  a  class 
may  be  traced  not  too  seldom  to  the  fountain-head. 

A  teacher  of  French  must  not  spare  himself.  It  is  not 
easy  for  an  American  or  an  Englishman  to  learn  a  foreign 
language.  All  the  help  that  can  be  given  should  be  given. 
It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  by  refusing  the  help  asked  for 
the  student  is  compelled  to  do  better  work.  He  does  not  do 
better ;  he  does  worse.  The  sole  purpose  of  a  teacher's 
existence  in  that  blessed  state  is  to  help.  Assistance  properly 
and  promptly  given,  explanations  cheerfully  vouchsafed  and 
gladly  repeated  over  and  over  and  over  again,  will  bring  on 
pupils  much  faster  and  much  more  surely  than  a  policy  of 
"  find  out  for  yourself  —  explained  it  before  —  so  simple  any 
fool  would  know  it." 

Again,  in  all  elementary  work,  which  involves  a  serious 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH.  67 

amount  of  drudgery  on  the  part  of  the  pupil,  —  no  matter 
how  much  aided  by  his  instructor,  —  it  is  of  prime  importance 
to  keep  up  the  interest.  A  class  must  be  always  wide  awake. 
If  the  teacher  is  sleepy,  the  pupils  will  snore;  if  he  is  bright 
and  alive,  the  pupils  will  be  the  same.  The  teacher  makes 
the  class  what  it  is.  He  has  no  one  to  blame  but  himself  if 
it  turns  out  poor  with  the  average  material  furnished  him. 
He  must  work,  if  the  students  are  to  work ;  and  he  must 
work  harder  than  they,  whether  they  know  it  or  not.  He  must 
lead ;  always  stimulate,  encourage.  And  he  must  take  great 
care  to  avoid  monotony  —  it  is  fatal  to  success.  No  one  exer- 
cise should  last  too  long.  Students  will  do  a  great  deal  of 
work  if  it  is  skilfully  varied  for  them.  They  may  not  under- 
stand this  ;  it  is  not  necessary  they  should :  but  the  teacher 
must  understand  and  practise  it. 

The  teacher  may  tire  himself ;  if  he  is  good  he  will :  he 
must  avoid  tiring  his  pupils.  He  is  not  a  preacher  who  has 
the  right  to  be  dull  and  wearisome  ;  he  is  an  instructor  whose 
first  business  is  to  keep  his  pupils  constantly  awake,  constantly 
interested,  constantly  learning  and  progressing. 

Therefore  he  will  vary  the  study  ;  some  grammar,  not  over 
much  at  a  time  ;  some  written  exercises,  as  a  basis  for  future 
composition ;  some  reading  and  translation ;  much  speaking  of 
French ;  plenty  of  explanations. 

SIGHT-READING. 

Sight-reading  may  be  begun  the  first  week. 

Because  sight-reading  is  not  only  very  interesting  to  students, 
who  derive  from  it  a  real  sense  of  progress,  but  because  there 
is  a  French  element  in  English ;  and  words  alike  or  nearly  alike 
in  both  languages  are  sufficiently  numerous  to  make  a  short 
exercise  in  sight-reading  possible  and  profitable.  Needless 
to  say  that  in  the  course  of  the  first  few  lessons  in  sight- 
reading,  frequent  translation  of  words  and  phrases  even  will 
be  required ;  but  very  soon  the  necessity  for  this  will  diminish. 


68       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

and  before  many  weeks  are  over  the  class  will  be  able  to 
follow  the  reading  without  much  translation. 

In  sight-reading  the  object  is  at  once  to  give  a  vocabulary 
to  students,  and  to  enable  them  to  read  French  without  neces- 
sarily translating  it  into  English.  They  are  to  be  told  ex- 
pressly that  they  are  not  expected  to  understand  every  word, 
but  to  grasp  the  sense  of  the  passage  being  read.  This  is 
doing  in  French  what  nearly  everybody  does  in  English. 
Very  few  persons,  probably,  if  the  test  were  applied,  could 
give  the  exact  meaning  of  every  English  word  they  read  ;  one 
need  only  glance  at  much  of  the  writing  published  nowadays 
to  be  sure  of  that  point,  and  also  that  writers  themselves 
do  not  always  understand  the  meaning  of  the  words  they 
use. 

Sight-reading  is  a  sure  means  of  interesting  students.  In- 
stead of  wearying  them  by  the  dry  and  repellent  old-time  method 
of  painfully  digging  out  the  meaning  of  each  separate  word  in  ten 
lines  of  Fenelon's  "  Telemaque  "  or  Voltaire's  "  Charles  XII.," 
it  enables  them  to  read,  understand,  and  enjoy  complete  books. 
First  year  students  in  Harvard,  for  instance,  read  through 
Halevy's  "L'Abbe  Constantin,"  Erckmann-Chatrian's  "Ma- 
dame Therese,"  Labiche's  "  La  Poudre  aux  Yeux  "  and  "  Le 
Voyage  de  M.  Perrichon,"  George  Sand's  "  La  Mare  au  Diable," 
besides  Merimee's  "  L'  Enlevement  de  la  Kedoute,"  and  ex- 
tracts from  Souvestre  and  other  writers.  In  short,  students 
being  interested  willingly  do  an  amount  of  work  which,  under 
the  old  method,  could  never  have  been  got  out  of  them. 

Translation  goes  hand  in  hand  with  sight-reading,  but  it 
must  be  translation,  not  transliteration.  The  plan  of  giving 
the  exact  dictionary  meaning  of  each  successive  word  is  bar- 
barous and  productive  of  all  manner  of  evil  results.  What  a 
student  must  be  taught  to  do  is  to  avoid  literal  translation, 
and  to  give  instead  an  equivalent  in  good  English  of  the 
French  original.  A  single  example  will  suffice  to  illustrate 
the  difference ;  and  be  it  noted  that  the  literal  translation  is 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OP  FRENCH.       69 

by  no  means  exaggerated ;  it  is  just  the  kind  of  thing  that 
teachers  have  heard  over  and  over  again  :  — 

"Non,  voyez-vous,  Monsieur  V  Abbe,  vous  avez  tort  de  prendre  les 
choses  au  tragique.  .  .  .  Tenez,  regardez  ma  petite  jument,  comme  elle 
trotte !  comine  elle  leve  les  pattes !  Yous  ne  la  connaissiez  pas.  Savez- 
vous  ce  que  je  l'ai  payee  ?  Quatre  cents  francs.  Je  l'ai  denichee,  il  y  a 
quinze  jours,  dans  les  brancards  d'une  charette  de  maraicher.  Une 
fois  que  c'est  bien  dans  son  train,  ca  vous  fait  quatre  lieues  a  l'heure,  et 
on  en  a  plein  les  mains,  tout  le  temps." 

Here  is  the  literal  translation,  such  as  the  student  is  likely 
to  give  it  with  the  help  of  the  dictionary  :  — 

"No,  see  you,  Mr.  Abbe,  you  are  wrong  to  take  things  tragically. 
Hold,  look  at  my  little  mare,  how  she  trots !  how  she  raises  the  paws, 
hoofs !  You  did  not  know  it.  Do  you  know  that  which  I  have  paid  ? 
Four  hundred  francs!  I  found  it  out,  there  are  fifteen  days,  in  the  shafts 
of  a  cart  of  a  market-gardener.  One  time  that  it  is  well  in  its  train  it 
makes  you  four  leagues  to  the  hour,  and  one  has  the  hands  full  of  it,  all 
the  time." 

Now,  the  student  who  is  trained  to  sight-reading  and  to  trans- 
late the  sense  of  the  passage  and  not  the  mere  words,  irrespec- 
tive of  their  idiomatic  meaning,  will  more  nearly  approximate 
this :  — 

"Now,  look  here,  sir  ;  you  should  not  look  at  the  dark  side  of  things. 
.  .  .  Why,  look  at  that  little  mare  of  mine,  how  she  steps  out!  Didn't 
know  I  had  her,  did  you  ?  Guess  what  I  paid  for  her  ?  Four  hundred 
francs.  Picked  her  up  a  fortnight  ago  from  a  market-gardener.  Once 
she  gets  into  her  gait  she  does  her  twelve  miles  an  hour,  and  it  is  all  you 
can  do  to  hold  her  too." 

All  allusions  met  with  in  the  course  of  the  reading  should 
be  explained,  whether  they  refer  to  customs,  manners,  books, 
men,  or  history  —  and  they  should  be  explained  slowly  in 
French,  repeating  words  or  sentences  if  necessary;  using 
simple  language ;  speaking  distinctly,  and  pitching  the  voice 
so  that  it  will  reach  every  part  of  the  room.  It  may  be  ad- 
visable occasionally,  but  only  occasionally,  to  briefly  recapitu- 
late in  English  what  has  been  said  in  French ;  but  this  should 


70       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

not  often  be  done ;  much  better  stimulate  the  curiosity  of  the 
students.  If  they  have  not  understood  once,  they  will  be 
anxious  to  understand  the  next  time. 

The  test  of  sight-reading  and  good  translation  is  not  ex- 
amination on  a  book  already  read  in  class,  but  on  passages 
wholly  new  to  the  pupils.  That  test  should  be  applied  pretty 
frequently.  It  is  a  mistake  to  take  it  for  granted  that  the 
students  are  progressing  because  they  appear  to  work  hard 
and  the  system  employed  by  the  instructor  is  good.  The  in- 
structor must  know  that  progress  is  being  made;  he  must, 
therefore,  use  frequent  tests  to  ascertain  the  exact  standing 
of  each  pupil. 

COMPOSITION. 

The  term  "French  composition"  is  often  misunderstood  in 
practice  to  mean  transliteration  from  English  into  French. 
It  is  scarcely  possible  to  commit  a  worse  error,  or  one  fraught 
with  more  disastrous  consequences  to  students. 

To  turn  a  passage  in  English  into  French  words  is  neither 
translation  nor  composition.  It  may  approach  the  former ;  it 
is  wide  of  the  latter. 

Composition  means  writing  good  French,  and  in  the  French 
way,  with  the  French  stamp. 

This  is  not  what  is  usually  done.  Instead,  the  dictionary 
is  called  upon,  and  about  the  first  word  found  is  accepted  as 
sufficient  and  put  down.  The  work  thus  done  is  invariably 
bad  —  no  exception  whatever  obtains  to  this  rule. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  when  a  passage  in  English  is  set 
for  transposition  into  French,  is  to  make  sure  that  the  pupils 
understand  the  meaning  of  the  English.  It  is  presumed  the 
teacher  does ;  it  is  certain  that  ninety-eight  per  cent  of  the 
pupils  seldom  or  never  take  the  trouble  to  assure  themselves 
that  they  thoroughly  grasp  the  sense  of  the  passage. 

This  is  the  main  obstacle  to  good  work. 

It  must  be  impressed  upon  teachers  and  pupils  alike  that  the 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH.       71 

object  to  be  attained  is  the  reproduction,  in  another  language, 
of  the  sense  of  the  passage,  of  the  ideas  contained  in  it,  as 
clearly,  as  plainly  as  possible. 

That  is  the  first  and  most  important  point. 

The  next,  which  is  secondary,  is  to  follow,  as  closely  as  the 
first  point  will  permit,  the  form  and  style  of  the  original. 

Literal  translation  must  be  condemned.  It  is  destructive 
of  all  truth  and  fidelity.  It  proceeds  on  the  principle  that  the 
same  words  arranged  in  the  same  order  give  the  same  meaning 
in  both  languages.  This  is  so  utterly  false  that  one  cannot  help 
wondering  that  any  teacher  should  tolerate  literal  translation 
for  a  moment. 

Generally  speaking  the  use  of  elision  is  more  frequent  in 
English  than  in  French.  The  tendency  of  the  pupil  is,  natur- 
ally, to  follow  the  English  fashion.  The  teacher  must  not 
be  surprised  if  it  takes  a  long  time  to  eradicate  that  habit  — 
it  has  grown  up  with  the  student ;  it  is  part  and  parcel  of  his 
mode  of  thought. 

French  is  richer  in  forms  than  English.  That  point  has 
already  been  referred  to  with  regard  to  the  noun,  article,  and 
adjective.  It  is  true,  likewise,  of  the  pronoun  and  the  verb. 
Compare,  for  instance :  — 


Masc.  sing. 

mine 

le  mien 

Fem.     " 

mine 

la  mienne 

Masc.  plur. 

ours 

le  ndtre,    les  ndtres 

Fem.     " 

ours 

la  notre,    les  ndtref 

And  in  the  verb:  — 

I  had 

j'avais 

Thou  hadst 

tu  avais 

He  had 

il  avait 

We  had 

nous  avions 

You  had 

vous  aviez 

They  had 

ils  avaient 

The  tendency  of  the  pupil  is  to  use  one  form  only,  or  two  or 
three  at  most,  as  in  English.     This  also  must  be  checked ;  and 


72       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

while  the  training  will  begin  during  the  year  of  elementary 
work,  it  will  be  found  that  it  takes  time  to  accustom  the  pupil 
to  the  difference  between  the  two  tongues. 

The  varied  meanings  of  an  English  word  are  another  source 
of  trouble,  complicated  by  unintelligent  use  of  the  dictionary. 
Here  is  one  instance  out  of  very  many :  "  A  stout  German 
who  leans  on  the  railing,"  was  actually  translated :  "  Tin  gros 
Allemand  qui  s'appuie  sur  la  medisance." 

The  words  may  and  might  and  could  are  constantly  mis- 
apprehended and  no  distinction  recognized  in  their  use  as 
independent  or  auxiliary  verbs. 

Idioms  are  troublesome,  but  mainly  because  teachers  are  apt 
to  yield  to  the  silly  request  to  know  "  what  it  means  liter- 
ally.11 An  idiom  never  has  any  literal  meaning,  and  the  at- 
tempt to  reproduce  it  literally  is  an  exercise  only  fit  for  idiots. 
What  possible  good  is  done  by  translating  literally  —  Qu'est- 
ce  que  c'est  que  cela  ?  when  What  is  that  ?  is  the  real  meaning 
of  the  longer  phrase.  Or,  II  se  tordait  les  cotes  de  rire  —  He 
twisted  his  ribs  with  laughing,  which  does  not  convey  at  all 
exactly  the  sense  of  the  original,  while,  He  split  his  sides  laugh- 
ing, does. 

One  can  only  give  equivalents  of  idioms,  and  for  this  pur- 
pose, among  others,  it  is  requisite  that  the  teacher  should  have 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  both  tongues. 

In  composition,  as  in  every  other  part  of  the  work,  explana- 
tion should  be  given  freely  and  fully,  all  questions  answered, 
all  doubts  cleared  up.  It  is  an  applied,  a  practical  way  of 
teaching  grammar,  and  can  be  made  very  useful  if  the  teacher 
does  not  spare  himself.  Kepetition  will  be  needed,  and  a  good 
deal  of  it ;  but  it  is  fruitful  in  good  results,  and,  besides,  an 
instructor  must  never  weary  of  restating  a  rule. 

It  is  very  important  that  the  transcribed  exercises  should 
be  read  over  by  the  instructor  himself,  even  if  he  does  not 
actually  correct  them,  so  that  he  may  see  exactly  the  nature 
and  number  of  mistakes  made.     This  will  enable  him  to  ex- 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH.       73 

plain  corrections  in  future  lessons  and  to  lay  stress  upon  the 
particular  points  in  which  he  finds  the  average  of  his  pupils 
weak. 

Particularly  weak  pupils  should  be  taken  in  hand  separately 
and  shown  exactly  what  their  mistakes  are,  how  to  correct 
and,  above  all,  how  to  avoid  them.  Many  pupils  fail  from 
not  knowing  how  to  set  about  their  work ;  they  start  wrong, 
and  all  the  explanations  given  in  class  are  Greek  to  them  be- 
cause they  cannot  see  the  object  of  them.  A  very  little 
private  work  with  such  students  is  certain  to  bring  them  up 
to  the  level  of  their  class  and  to  transform  them  from  appar- 
ently dull  into  intelligently  receptive  individuals. 

It  will  generally  be  found  that  they  do  not  understand  the 
use  of  the  dictionary ;  that  they  are  not  well  grounded  in  the 
elements  of  grammar,  or  that,  being  fairly  well  grounded, 
they  do  not  know  how  to  apply  what  they  have  learned ;  and, 
finally,  that  they  are  totally  ignorant  of  construction,  a  serious 
drawback  in  the  study  of  a  language  in  which  clearness  of 
expression  is  the  prime  requisite. 

Few  persons,  among  those  whose  mother-tongue  is  English, 
have  any  idea  of  how  very  loose  and  inaccurate  is  much  of 
the  so-called  good  English  met  with  in  books.  The  great  free- 
dom which  the  vigor  and  richness  of  the  language  allow  of 
in  its  use,  the  frequency  of  ellipsis,  the  boldness  of  inversion, 
the  large  employment  of  figures  and  similes,  are  very  apt  to 
induce  considerable  carelessness  in  the  expression  of  the 
meaning  sought  to  be  conveyed,  resulting  frequently  in  sheer 
obscurity.  Now,  this  is  utterly  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  the 
French  language.  A  French  writer  knows  and  feels  that  he 
must  be  clear,  and  no  piece  of  prose  or  verse  which  lacks  this 
quality  has   any  chance  of  being  rated  good. 

Hence  the  instructor  must  take  special  pains  to  make  cer- 
tain that  his  students  understand  the  meaning  of  the  passage 
they  are  called  upon  to  reproduce  in  French,  and  this  is  little 
attended  to  as  a  rule.     There  is  apt  to  be  a  blind  belief  that 


74  NOTES   ON  THE  TEACHING  OF   FKENCH. 

because  an  extract  is  taken  from  the  works  of  a  celebrated 
writer,  the  English  is  all  right.  It  ought  to  be  ;  it  generally 
is,  but  not  always ;  and  even  if  it  is,  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  the  student  understands  it.  Ignorance  is  very  willing  to 
let  things  go,  and  if  a  pupil  does  not  care  to  take  the  trouble 
to  grasp  the  sense  of  the  extract,  he  simply  makes  a  trans- 
literation of  it  —  a  hideous  abomination. 

Here,  by  way  of  illustration,  is  an  extract  from  "  Pictures  of 
Places,"  by  Henry  James,  Jr.  It  reads  very  well  at  the  first 
glance,  but  on  examination,  for  the  purpose  of  reproduction 
in  French,  the  involved  nature  of  some  of  the  sentences  and 
the  very  curious  figures  used  become  strikingly  apparent :  — 

"  The  standpoint  you  are  likely  to  choose  first  is  that  on  the  Canada 
Cliff,  a  little  way  above  the  suspension  bridge.  The  great  fall  faces  you, 
enshrined  in  its  own  surging  incense.  Already  you  see  the  world-famous 
green,  baffling  painters,  baffling  poets,  shining  on  the  lip  of  the  precipice; 
the  more  so,  of  course,  for  the  clouds  of  silver  and  snow  into  which  it 
speedily  resolves  itself.  The  whole  picture  before  you  is  admirably  sim- 
ple. The  Horseshoe  glares  and  boils  and  smokes  from  the  centre  to  the 
right,  drumming  itself  into  powder  and  thunder;  in  the  centre  the  dark 
pedestal  of  Goat  Island  divides  the  double  flood;  to  the  left  booms  in 
vaporous  dimness  the  minor  battery  of  the  American  Fall ;  while  on  a 
level  with  the  eye,  above  the  still  crest  of  either  cataract,  appear  the 
white  faces  of  the  hithermost  rapids.  The  circle  of  weltering  froth  at 
the  base  of  the  Horseshoe,  emerging  from  the  dead- white  vapors  —  abso- 
lutely white,  as  moonless  midnight  is  absolutely  black  —  which  muffle 
impenetrably  the  crash  of  the  river  upon  the  lower  bed,  melts  slowly 
into  the  darker  shades  of  green. " 

Two  very  brief  extracts  from  James  Russell  Lowell's 
"Essays"  will  make  quite  clear  the  necessity  of  understand- 
ing the  author's  meaning  before  attempting  to  reproduce  it:  — 

"His  'French  Revolution'  is  a  series  of  lurid  pictures,  unmatched  for 
vehement  power,  in  which  the  figures  of  such  sons  of  earth  as  Mirabeau 
and  Danton  loom  gigantic  and  terrible,  as  in  the  glare  of  an  eruption, 
their  shadows  swaying  far  and  wide  grotesquely  awful.  But  all  is  painted 
by  eruption-flashes  in  violent  light  and  shade.  There  are  no  half-tints, 
mo  gradations,  and  one  finds  it  impossible  to  account  for  the  continuance 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH.       75 

in  power  of  less  Titanic  actors  in  the  tragedy,  like  Robespierre,  on  any 
theory  whether  of  human  nature  or  of  individual  character  supplied  by 
Mr.  Carlyle.  Of  his  success,  however,  in  accomplishing  what  he  aimed 
at,  which  was  to  haunt  the  mind  with  memories  of  a  horrible  political 
nightmare,  there  can  be  no  doubt." 

Translate  any  part  of  this  literally,  and  the  result  is  incom- 
prehensible nonsense.     "  Eruption-flashes,"  for  instance. 
Or  this,  which,  at  first  sight,  appears  quite  easy:  — 

Burke  and  Johnson  were  both  of  them  sincere  men,  both  of  them  men 
of  character  as  well  as  of  intellectual  force;  and  I  cite  their  opinions  of 
Rousseau  with  the  respect  due  to  an  honest  conviction  which  has  appar- 
ent grounds  for  its  adoption,  whether  we  agree  with  it  or  no. 

Burke  et  Johnson  etaient  tous  les  deux  hommes  sinceres,  tous  les 
deux  homines  de  caractere  aussi  bien  que  deforce  intellectuelle;  et  je  cite 
leurs  opinions  de  Rousseau  avec  le  respect  du.  a  une  honnete  conviction 
qui  a  des  raisons  apparentes  pour  son  adoption,  soit  que  nous  nous 
accordions  avec  ou  non  — 

which  is  very  easy  to  do  indeed,  but  is  no  more  French  than 
it  is  Chinese. 

From  the  very  outset  pupils  must  be  taught  to  use  the  sim- 
plest construction  possible  ;  to  avoid  lengthy  sentences,  abrupt 
inversions,  obscure  figures  or  similes.  The  art  of  composing 
in  any  language  is  not  easily  acquired,  and  to  attempt  to  rival 
masters  of  language  and  style  in  the  earlier  stages  of  study  is 
a  piece  of  folly.  These  masters  will  furnish  useful  models, 
gradually  improving  the  taste ;  but  the  main  object  of  the 
teacher  must  be  to  enable  his  students  to  express  themselves 
clearly  and  readily.  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  trans- 
lation of  extracts  is  not  the  ultimate  end  to  be  attained.  It 
is  only  a  means  to  it,  the  end  itself  being  the  power,  on  the 
part  of  the  student,  to  express  himself  at  once  in  written 
French  without  first  putting  down  his  thoughts  in  English. 
Then,  and  then  only,  does  he  compose ;  but  if  he  is  constantly 
kept  to  English  models,  he  will  always  want  English  to  lean 
on  —  in  other  words,  he  will  never  master  French. 

Therefore  students  — and  this  applies  to  pupils  in  secondary 


76       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH 

schools  equally  as  much,  as  to  students  in  colleges  —  must  be 
early  set  simple  exercises  in  original  composition.  These  may 
be  a  few  lines  only  in  length ;  consist  of  detached  sentences 
even,  but  they  must  be  written  without  the  interposition  of 
English.  With  the  gradual  progress  made,  the  exercises  in- 
crease in  length  and  difficulty.  The  class  hears  read  a  short 
story,  and  writes  a  summary  of  it.  Later  still,  a  book  having 
been  finished,  —  say  "  La  Mare  au  Diable  " — the  pupils  are  asked 
to  write  down  either  a  scene  from  it,  or  a  description  of  one  of 
the  characters,  or  a  sketch  of  the  plot.  Again,  after  a  vaca- 
tion, they  can  be  called  upon  for  a  short  letter,  telling  how 
they  spent  their  time.  The  results  will  often  be  crude,  so 
crude,  perhaps,  as  to  discourage  the  teacher.  He  must  not  be 
discouraged.  That  anything  has  been  produced  is  of  itself  a 
satisfactory  result,  and  a  guaranty  that  the  students  are 
capable,  with  careful  instruction  and  inexhaustible  patience, 
of  doing  better  work. 

By  way  of  illustrating  what  is  actually  obtained  from  stu- 
dents, here  are  a  couple  of  notes  written,  the  one  on  Decem- 
ber 20,  the  other  on  December  23,  by  two  students  who  entered 
the  elementary  class  in  Erench  at  the  beginning  of  October, 
neither  of  them  having  ever  learned  a  word  of  the  language 
at  that  time  :  — 

I.  M  Avec  cette  meme  malle,  je  vous  envoie  cinq  livres  bleus  des  exer- 
cises f  rancais.  Fidelement,  mon  coeur  est  plus  le'ger  depuis  ils  sont  partis. 
J'e'spere  que  vous  chercherez  en  vain  des  erreurs,  mais  j'ai  pressentment 
de  mal." 

II.  ' '  J'ai  recu  votre  lettre  ce  matin,  et  je  serai  tres  heureux  accepter 
votre  invitation  obligeante,  sur  le  soir  de  Noel,  le  25  Decembre,  quoique 
je  suis  chagrin  que  mes  amis  Japons  sont  occupe*s  ce  soir  la.'1 

The  first  of  these  was  written  by  an  American,  the  second 
by  a  Japanese. 

The  more  pains  an  instructor  takes,  the  better  the  results 
will  be ;  consequently,  as  pupils  advance  in  composition  work, 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH.       77 

it  is  advisable  to  adopt  something  like  the  seminar  plan.  The 
asking  of  questions  must  be  encouraged  to  the  utmost,  for  even 
the  cleverest  and  most  experienced  teacher  can  never  remem- 
ber all  the  difficulties. 

When  the  work  thus  corrected  viva  voce  in  class  has  been 
transcribed,  the  instructor  should,  before  proceeding  to  a  new 
piece  of  work,  re-read  the  correct  form  and  again  give  expla- 
nations, if  called  upon  —  which  he  will  be  if  the  class  is  good. 
The  reason  of  changes  should  always  be  explained ;  a  pupil 
should  know  why  a  certain  expression  or  term  is  right  and 
another  wrong. 

In  more  advanced  work  where  themes  or  summaries  are 
written  by  the  students,  the  corrections  will  be  made  out  of 
class,  as  it  would  manifestly  be  impossible  to  correct  each 
theme  with  the  whole  class  and  retain  their  attention ;  but 
arrangements  should  be  made  to  meet  a  certain  small,  very 
small,  number  of  the  students  separately  at  another  hour,  and 
there  and  then  explain  carefully  the  why  and  wherefore  of 
each  correction  or  substitution.  Merely  to  correct  in  red  ink 
is  to  assume  a  knowledge  of  grammar  and  style  on  the  part  of 
the  student  which  he  evidently  does  not  possess,  or  he  would 
not  have  needed  corrections  on  his  work. 

Composition  thus  taught,  in  conjunction  with  much  reading 
of  French  texts  and  with  constant  hearing  of  spoken  French, 
will  result  in  such  marked  progress  that  the  student  will 
gladly  do  any  amount  of  work,  do  it  well,  and  become  really 
proficient  in  French. 

MEMORIZING. 

Memorizing  passages  of  verse  or  prose  is  an  exercise  little 
relished,  usually,  by  students,  but  it  is  a  very  useful  one  in 
three  respects. 

First,  it  increases  the  vocabulary  of  the  pupil,  and  this  is  of 
great  importance.     All  words  are  not  retained,  of  course,  but 


78       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

those  recurring  frequently  are  well  fixed  in  the  memory,  and 
it  is  these  very  words  which  are  most  needed  by  the  learner. 

Secondly,  forms  and  locutions  are  acquired  with  comparative 
facility,  and  the  more  they  are  unlike  those  of  the  pupil's 
mother  tongue,  the  more  readily  will  they  strike  him  and 
stimulate  the  desire  to  learn  their  exact  force. 

Thirdly,  if  the  passages  are  recited  aloud  to  an  instructor, 
an  excellent  opportunity  is  afforded  to  correct  and  improve 
the  pronunciation,  always  a  difficult  task,  and  one  which  must 
be  constantly  attended  to. 

The  passages  may  usually  be  left  to  the  choice  of  pupils 
themselves,  controlled  by  the  teacher's  advice  that  such  ex- 
tracts should  be  preferred  as  are  from  good  writers  and  usually 
referred  to  in  books  or  conversation. 

To  make  memorizing  compulsory  is  probably  unwise.  Some 
people  lack  the  peculiar  power  of  memory  which  enables  one 
to  learn  extracts  by  heart ;  it  is  wasting  time  and  trouble  to 
compel  such  individuals  to  memorize  even  a  short  fable  of  La 
Fontaine.  They  will  stumble  over  the  lines,  mispronounce 
the  words,  lose  the  connection,  make  a  mess  of  the  sense,  and 
irritate  the  instructor  possibly,  themselves  certainly.  In  this, 
as  in  all  other  methods  employed,  due  attention  must  be  paid 
to  the  individual  peculiarities  of  the  pupil.  Machine  work, 
routine  system,  are  quite  inadmissible  if  success  is  to  be 
obtained. 

DICTATION. 

This  exercise  is  not  open  to  the  reservation  made  in  the 
case  of  memorizing.  It  is  good  for  all  classes  of  pupils,  and 
may  profitably  be  employed  even  in  the  most  advanced  classes. 
Its  primary  use  lies  in  accustoming  beginners  to  recognize 
sounds  and  translate  them  into  orthography.  Beginners  al- 
ways mispronounce  French  when  called  upon  to  read  aloud ; 
they  mispronounce  it  infinitely  more  when  reading  to  them- 
selves :  what  they  go  by  is  the  look  of  the  printed  or  written 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OP  FRENCH.       79 

word ;  what  they  recognize  is  the  combination  of  characters, 
a.  familiar  termination  :  they  do  not  readily  or  correctly  appre- 
hend the  words  when  spoken.  Eeading  aloud  by  the  instructor 
is  an  excellent  means  of  helping  pupils  to  connect  the  written 
or  printed  word  with  the  sound  of  it  when  spoken ;  but  it  has 
one  drawback  in  this  respect :  the  student  seeks  to  gather 
and  follow  the  sense  of  the  passage  rather  than  to  catch  the 
sound  of  the  words.  Particularly  is  this  the  case  when  the 
class  has  the  text  to  look  at ;  then  there  is  very  little  real 
work  done  in  the  way  of  connecting  sound  and  print. 

In  dictation,  on  the  other  hand,  the  main  object,  at  first, 
is  to  accustom  the  pupil  to  note  carefully  the  sound  of  the 
spoken  words  and  to  write  these  sounds  correctly.  The  sense 
of  the  passage  is  relatively  unimportant  in  earlier  exercises 
of  this  nature ;  it  has  to  be  taken  into  consideration,  that  goes 
without  saying,  but  if  it  is  not  grasped  no  harm  is  done.  All 
dictations  in  the  early  part  of  a  course  in  French  should  be 
directed  to  one  end,  —  recognizing  printed  or  written  words 
by  the  sounds.     It  is  the  training  of  the  ear,  not  of  the  eye. 

This  training  is  a  necessary  adjunct  to  the  teaching  of  pro- 
nunciation. The  pupil  cannot  imitate  what  he  does  not  hear ; 
therefore  he  must  be  taught  to  hear,  to  distinguish  one  sound 
from  the  other,  so  that  he  may  reproduce  it  correctly.  A 
large  amount  of  patience  is  needed  here  by  both  instructor 
and  learner.  The  latter  must  apply  himself  attentively  to 
catch  the  sounds  actually  emitted  by  the  instructor,  and  he 
must  beware  of  anticipating  the  sound  ;  that  is,  taking  it  for 
granted  that  a  particular  combination  of  letters  is  pronounced 
in  the  way  he  has  adopted  for  himself.  A.s  long  as  he  does 
that  he  is  sure  to  err ;  he  will  hear,  not  the  pronunciation 
given  by  the  instructor,  but  the  pronunciation  he  has  fixed 
upon  in  his  own  mind.  It  is  like  the  jangling  of  bells  —  they 
ring  whatever  refrain  happens  to  be  trotting  in  one's  head. 

The  instructor  must  be  patient,  particularly  in  repeating  as 
frequently  as  necessary  the  words  dictated,  and  in  pronoun- 


80      NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

cing  them  distinctly.  And  here  he  must  not  forget  that  there 
are  two  ways  of  uttering  words,  and  that  he  must  use  both  if 
the  pupil  is  to  be  properly  helped  along.  There  is  the  ordi- 
nary utterance,  that  used  in  conversation,  in  reading,  where 
many  syllables  are  slurred;  and  there  is  the  syllabic,  in 
which  each  member  of  the  word  is  pronounced  separately. 

C'est  un  enfant  extravagant  pronounced  in  both  fashions 
will  illustrate  the  point.  Pronounced  currently,  the  pupil 
will  hear  the  phrase  as  in  conversation  ;  pronounced  in  sylla- 
bles, he  will  have  a  better  idea  of  the  component  members 
of  each  word,  —  but  the  instructor  must  always  end  by  pro- 
nouncing the  words  conversationally,  since  that  is  the  way  in 
which  they  will  usually  be  heard  by  the  student. 

Elementary  dictations  should  bear  upon  those  sounds  which 
are  alike  in  French  and  in  English  ;  there  are,  strictly  speak- 
ing, no  sounds  exactly  alike,  but  in  practice  many  sufficiently 
resemble  each  other.  Next,  words  in  which  similar  or  nearly 
similar  combinations  of  letters  occur  in  both  languages  should 
be  practised  on,  e.  g. :  nation,  nation  ;  historien,  historian ;  ca- 
nal, canal ;  science,  science ;  etc.  Then  sounds  wholly  French, 
comprising  the  whole  range  of  nasals,  the  liquid  I,  the  y  in 
the  middle  of  a  word,  and  so  on.  After  this,  distinction 
between  similar  terminations  in  French,  bon,  vont,  aiment, 
souvent. 

With  the  progress  of  the  pupil  the  dictations  must  assume 
a  different  character ;  rapidity  of  enunciation  must  be  grad- 
ually introduced  and  the  understanding  of  the  sense  of  the 
passage  insisted  upon.  Here,  too,  help  must  be  given.  When 
entering  upon  this  part  of  the  work  the  substance  of  the  pas- 
sage to  be  dictated  may  be  explained  briefly  in  English ;  the 
subject  indicated  at  least.  Then  the  whole  passage  should 
be  read  slowly  and  distinctly  in  French,  to  give  the  class  an 
opportunity  of  understanding  it,  as  far  as  possible ;  next  the 
dictation  proper,  not  many  words  at  once ;  these  repeated  three 
or  four  times  over,  and  the  punctuation  indicated,  care  having 


NOTES   ON   THE  TEACHING   OF   FRENCH.  81 

been  taken  to  inscribe  on  the  blackboard  the  signs  of  punctua- 
tion, with  their  names  in  French.  Finally,  the  passage  should 
be  re-read  throughout.  All  this  means  trouble,  but  without 
trouble  and  painstaking  no  teacher  can  succeed.  He  needs 
to  take  both,  and  intelligently. 

Correction  of  the  dictation  may  be  done  in  many  ways.  A 
very  bad  way,  preferred  by  lazy  instructors,  is  to  have  the 
work  passed  on  to  the  next  pupil,  a  general  interchange  thus 
taking  place,  and  the  pupils  themselves  being  told  to  correct 
from  the  text  if  they  have  it.  This  plan  invariably  results 
in  numerous  mistakes  being  left  uncorrected  and  in  many 
miscorrections.  The  proper  corrector  is  the  instructor.  He 
should  make  a  point  of  looking  at  every  separate  exercise,  so 
as  to  see  for  himself  not  merely  the  number,  but,  what  is  in- 
finitely more  important,  the  nature  of  the  mistakes.  It  is  an 
excellent  lesson  for  him  ;  a  mode  of  obtaining  very  valuable 
information. 

Once  he  has  ascertained  in  this  way  what  are  the  individual 
faults,  which  are  the  sounds  most  generally  misapprehended, 
he  can  proceed  to  correct  in  class,  using  the  blackboard  largely 
to  supplement  his  viva  voce  spelling.  In  thus  correcting  —  it 
is  understood  that  each  pupil  has  had  his  exercise  returned 
to  him  — '  the  instructor  must  lay  stress  upon  the  more  com- 
mon mistakes  he  has  noticed  and  illustrate  by  pronunciation 
and  writing  the  difference  between  the  right  and  the  wrong 
way. 

Dictations  should  never  be  very  long ;  if  they  are  they 
become  tiresome  to  the  pupil  and  do  harm  instead  of  good. 
Teachers  who  give  long  dictations  do  not  correct  them. 

SPEAKING   FRENCH. 

There  are  many  teachers,  and  very  good  ones  among  them 
too,  who  believe  that  in  teaching  a  foreign  language  English 
should  be  used  for  all  explanations. 


82       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

The  writer  believes  that  on  the  very  first  day  a  beginner 
should  hear  the  sound  of  the  language  he  desires  to  learn,  and 
that  he  should  be  taught  in  that  language  as  far  as  possible. 

Not  that  English  need  be  proscribed ;  it  cannot  be  in  large 
classes  if  progress  is  to  be  made,  but  it  should  be  entirely 
secondary ;  used  as  little  as  possible,  and  only  when  repeated 
attempts  to  make  intelligible  an  explanation  in  French  have 
failed. 

Pupils  will  quickly  pick  up  the  ordinary  phrases  used  in 
the  work  of  the  class-room ;  more  difficult  expressions,  longer 
explanations,  they  will  understand  pretty  readily  if  the  black- 
board is  used  as  it  should  be,  and  especially  if  the  teacher  is 
patient  and  has  sense  enough  to  remember  that  Rome  was 
not  built  in  a  day. 

Reading  at  sight  will  greatly  aid  students  in  understanding 
spoken  French,  but  the  best  means  of  making  them  do  so  is, 
after  all,  to  speak  it.  If  the  teacher  takes  pains  to  speak 
slowly  and  distinctly  at  first,  choosing  easy  words,  using  sim- 
ple expressions  and  the  simplest  possible  constructions,  it  is 
quite  astonishing  how  rapidly  a  large  class  will  learn  to 
understand  him. 

Students  should  be  encouraged  to  ask  their  questions  in 
French  ;  they  will  bungle  very  often,  and  some  strange  sounds 
will  be  heard,  impossible,  perhaps,  to  understand.  In  that 
case,  let  the  teacher  ask  that  the  question  be  put  in  English, 
and  then  repeat  it  himself  in  French,  drawing  attention  to 
the  words  used  and  to  their  pronunciation.  The  next  time 
the  student  speaks,  an  improvement  will  be  noticed. 

If  teachers  only  knew  it  —  those  who  do  not  believe  in 
speaking  French  —  they  could  interest  their  class  very  greatly 
by  talking  about  a  point  of  grammar  in  French,  or  explaining 
an  allusion,  a  word  even.  One  of  the  pleasantest  sights  is  to 
see  some  hundred  and  odd  students  listening  "with  all  their 
ears  "  to  a  ten  or  twelve  minutes'  talk  in  French ;  students 
who,  three  or  four  months  before,  had  never  heard  a  word  of 
the  language. 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH.       88 

But  it  may  be  objected  that  the  understanding  is  only- 
apparent,  and  that  in  reality  the  pupils  thus  addressed  have 
not  a  ghost  of  an  idea  of  what  is  being  said.  Very  good ; 
only  when  pupils  do  not  understand,  they  do  one  of  two 
things,  sometimes  both ;  they  cease  to  listen,  or  they  speak 
right  out  in  meeting,  and  say  they  do  not  comprehend.  The 
American  student  is  not  bashful,  as  a  rule. 

But  foolish  indeed  is  the  teacher  who  neglects  to  test  his 
pupils.  The  exercise  of  speaking  to  the  class  can  be  easily 
proved  useful ;  in  this  way  :  talk  for  five,  ten,  fifteen  minutes 
in  French ;  then  straightway  make  every  pupil  write  down 
in  English  the  substance  of  what  has  been  said.  This  test 
has  been  applied  over  and  over  again  with  invariably  good 
results,  the  percentage  of  failures  being  rarely  more  than 
two  or  three  per  cent.  The  summaries  are  of  course  collected 
at  once. 

A  class  so  taught  will  prefer  to  be  talked  to  in  French,  and 
every  member  of  it  feels  that  he  has  made  distinct  progress. 
He  becomes  more  and  more  interested,  and  the  teacher  can  be 
sure  that  all  the  work  he  wants  done  will  be  done. 

Further,  pupils  thus  prepared  in  their  first  year  will  be 
capable  of  acquiring  a  speaking  knowledge  of  French  much 
more  quickly,  and  they  will  soon  learn  to  follow  and  under- 
stand not  only  readings,  but  lectures  in  French.  The  language 
is  then  a  living  one  to  them.  It  is  a  language,  a  tool,  a  help 
in  reality. 

CONVERSATION. 

A  college  student  who  learns  Latin  or  Greek  may  be  satis- 
fied to  read  and  write  it  with  facility ;  but  if  he  studies  a 
modern  language  he  ought  also  to  be  able  to  speak  it.  No 
training  in  modern  languages  is  complete  which  does  not 
include  these  three  points,  —  facility  in  reading,  writing, 
speaking. 

Unfortunately,  speaking   cannot   be   taught   in   classes  as 


84       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

numerous  as  are  those  in  most  colleges,  and  especially  in 
some  of  the  larger  institutions.  Hence  the  failure  of  these 
institutions  to  turn  out  as  many  completely  fitted  men  as 
they  should. 

The  success  of  the  language  schools,  so-called,  arises  from 
the  classes  being  restricted  in  numbers.  The  idea  is  not  origi- 
nal with  them,  but  they  have  had  the  sense  to  apply  it ;  and 
they  deserve,  consequently,  all  the  patronage  they  get,  even 
if  they  do  not  always  succeed  in  carrying  pupils  very  far. 

When  it  comes  to  trying  to  teach  more  than  a  dozen  per- 
sons at  a  time  to  speak  in  a  foreign  language,  the  task  is  so 
much  beyond  the  powers  of  even  very  good  instructors,  that 
they  tire  themselves  out  without  any  corresponding  good 
results. 

Students  can  be  taught  to  speak  a  foreign  language,  even  if 
they  have  not  the  opportunity  of  going  abroad;  but  it  can 
only  be  done  by  capable  instructors  handling  a  restricted  num- 
ber of  pupils,  and  meeting  their  class  frequently  during  the 
week. 

No  class  should  exceed  twelve  in  number :  eight  is  quite 
enough;  but  a  smart,  competent  teacher,  with  plenty  of 
"snap,"  capable  of  making  the  lesson  bright,  lively,  and  in- 
teresting, can  handle  ten  or  twelve  without  too  much  over- 
expenditure  of  nervous  force. 

The  first  difficulty  the  teacher  has  to  contend  with  in  pupils 
is  shyness.  The  sound  of  his  own  voice  uttering  foreign 
words  is  usually  sufficient  to  "  rattle  "  the  most  self-possessed 
student;  and  it  is  very  difficult  to  make  learners  get  over 
that  feeling.  It  is  worse  in  a  large  class ;  it  amounts,  in 
practice,  to  frequent  stoppage  of  effort  on  the  part  of  pupils. 
A  small  class  is  therefore  likely  to  do  better  :  for  one  reason, 
each  member  of  it  gets  to  know  the  teacher  more  quickly, 
therefore  better,  and  is  more  apt  to  acquire  courage  to  speak 
out. 

The  more  tact  a  teacher  has  the  better  in  this  kind  of 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH.       85 

work.  There  must  be  no  laughing  at  the  student ;  on  the 
contrary,  a  visible  and  real  interest  in  his  progress,  and  a 
constant  readiness,  nay,  eagerness,  to  assist,  aid,  correct. 
There  is  scarcely  anything  more  trying  to  a  student  than  the 
attempt  to  express  himself  in  a  foreign  language  in  the  pres- 
ence of  others.  Even  if  by  a  determined  effort  the  feeling  of 
shyness  is  overcome,  there  remains  the  difficulty  of  finding 
words  to  express  the  thought,  of  co-ordinating  them,  when 
found,  in  a  properly  constructed  sentence,  and  of  pronouncing 
the  whole  sentence  in  a  way  to  make  it  partially  intelligible. 
It  is  very  important  that  the  teacher  should  remember  that 
these  difficulties  and  obstacles  present  themselves  each  time 
that  the  student  endeavors  to  speak ;  and  he  must  from  this 
fact  learn  to  be  very  patient  indeed  and  helpful  to  the  utmost. 
It  is  well,  also,  to  explain  to  the  class  that  these  difficulties 
exist,  and  must  be  met  and  overcome.  When  students  see 
that  their  instructor  knows  thoroughly,  and  appreciates  fully, 
the  troubles  they  suffer  from,  they  are  at  once  encouraged. 
Encouragement,  assistance,  is  what  the  teacher  must  give. 

The  instruction  in  conversation  classes  is  best  given  in 
French  exclusively.  The  object  must  be  to  counteract  the 
tendency  of  the  pupils  to  fall  back  upon  English ;  a  tendency 
so  strong  that  no  pains  must  be  spared  to  check  it.  This  is 
one  of  the  reasons  why  conversation  classes  are  so  peculiarly 
exhausting :  there  is  a  strain  put  upon  the  instructor  greater 
perhaps  than  in  any  other  part  of  his  work.  Another  reason 
is  the  necessity  of  bearing  in  mind  the  vocabulary  already 
taught  the  students,  so  that  a  regular  progression  may  be 
maintained  and  new  words  introduced  just  when  needed.  In 
this  branch  of  the  teaching  of  French,  system  is  indispensable. 
It  will  not  do  to  get  up  at  haphazard  conversations  on  all 
subjects  under  the  sun.  That  plan  answers  very  well  with 
advanced  classes,  the  members  of  which  have  acquired  a  suf- 
ficient vocabulary,  fluency  of  speech,  and,  consequently,  self- 
reliance.    In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  work  the  ground  must 


86       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH. 

be  carefully  prepared,  and  the  pupil  brought  along  from  one 
point  to  another  with  the  feeling  that  he  is  capable  of  advan- 
cing. This  necessitates  not  only  system  and  memory  on  the 
part  of  the  teacher,  but  very  frequent  repetition  at  first,  until 
the  fundamental  groups  of  words  and  sentences  are  thoroughly 
mastered.  Tedious,  this,  if  not  varied,  but  it  is  for  the  teacher 
to  be  constantly  bright,  quick,  alive ;  if  he  is,  the  class  will 
be.     If  he  be  dull,  the  class  will  go  to  sleep. 

Recourse  should  not  be  had  to  plays  and  novels.  The 
temptation  to  the  teacher  to  simply  read  the  scenes  or  pas- 
sages which  he  enjoys  is  very  great,  and  the  exercise  is 
suddenly  transformed  from  one  in  conversation  to  one  in 
understanding  reading.  The  better  the  teacher  reads,  the 
more  he  should  avoid  doing  it.  The  pupils  hear  conversation 
read  out;  they  are  not  themselves  speaking. 

Indeed,  it  cannot  be  too  often  impressed  upon  a  teacher 
that  his  business  in  a  conversation  class,  is  not  to  talk  him- 
self, but  to  make  the  students  talk.  The  former  is  easy,  the 
latter  is  difficult ;  but  it  is  the  duty  to  be  performed,  and  stu- 
dents should  complain  if  the  instructor  indulges  in  mono- 
logues. It  is  not  often  that  they  will  do  it  openly :  they  do 
it  privately,  among  themselves,  even  when  they  have,  for 
reasons  of  personal  amusement  or  laziness,  induced  the  mono- 
logue. Make  the  students  talk — that  is  what  the  instructor 
of  a  conversation  class  must  constantly  repeat  to  himself. 

CLASSIC    WRITERS. 

La  Fontaine,  Corneille,  Moliere,  Racine,  are  read  to  a  small 
extent  in  most  elementary  classes  —  meaning  by  elementary, 
first,  second,  and  third  year  work  in  secondary  schools,  and 
first  and  second  in  colleges.  It  would  be  better  for  the  pupils, 
and  certainly  for  the  authors,  if  neither  fables  nor  plays  were 
included  in  the  curriculum  of  those  years.  Seventeenth  cen- 
tury French  comes  under  the  denomination  of  modern  French, 
of  course,  but  only  by  contrast  with  Old  French.     A  person 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH.       87 

who  can  read  nineteenth  century  French  with  ease  will  have 
little  or  no  trouble  in  reading  the  classics  of  the  golden  age ; 
but  the  case  is  different  with  those  who  are  practically  be- 
ginners. They  cannot  thoroughly  appreciate  the  beauties  of 
these  writers  because  they  are  having  a  constant  struggle  with 
words  whose  meaning  has  changed,  with  forms  and  construc- 
tions which  are  obsolete.  Their  yet  shaky  knowledge  of 
modern  syntax  is  constantly  being  troubled  by  forms  which 
they  have  been  told  they  must  not  use,  and  which,  neverthe- 
less, are  declared  right  when  employed  by  masters  of  litera- 
ture. 

They  are  apt  to  be  interested  in  Moliere's  comedies :  "  Le  Bour- 
geois Gentilhomme  "  and  "  L'Avare  "  may  always  be  depended 
upon  to  amuse  a  class,  especially  if  read  rapidly  enough  to 
enable  the  pupils  to  follow  the  fun  :  "  Le  Cid,"  in  a  minor  degree, 
will  captivate  a  portion  at  least ;  but  Corneille's  other  master- 
pieces or  Racine's  superb  works  are  dull  and  prosy  to  them. 
These  splendid  works  of  art  should  not  be  lowered  to  the  base 
use  of  mere  reading-exercises,  but  kept  for  that  time  in  the 
study  of  the  language  when  the  pupils  having  acquired  suffi- 
cient familiarity  with  it,  no  longer  stumble  along,  but  read 
with  facility  without  the  necessity  for  translation.  Then  the 
great  writers  may  profitably  be  taken  up  and  genuine  enjoy- 
ment derived  by  students  and  teacher  from  intelligent  study 
of  comedy,  tragedy,  or  fable.  p  J 

Of  the  four,  La  Fontaine  is  least  fitted  for  elementary  work 
spite  of  the  fact  that  in  France  it  is  a  recognized  child's  book. 
Nothing  can  be  more  dreary  for  the  pupils,  more  painful  for 
the  teacher,  than  the  translating  of  even  the  first  book  of  the 
Fables  as  usually  done.  It  is  a  grievous,  wicked  sacrifice  of 
exquisitely  beautiful  work,  resulting  in  no  good  to  anybody, 
and  generally  inspiring  the  pupil  with  as  profound  a  detesta- 
tion of  La  Fontaine  as  was  formerly  inspired  for  Fenelon  by 
the  misuse  of  his  admirable  prose  poem.  La  Fontaine  is  es- 
sentially a  writer  for  appreciative  readers ;  besides  which  his 


88       NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH, 

frequent  use  of  archaisms  and  patois  makes  his  fables  partic- 
ularly difficult  of  understanding  to  beginners. 

If,  however,  La  Fontaine,  Corneille,  Moliere,  and  Racine 
are  to  be  read,  let  them  be  read  in  such  a  way  as  will  diminish 
as  much  as  possible  the  objections  raised  above. 

To  begin  with  the  fabulist.  Instead  of  simply  starting  on 
reading  and  translating  "  La  Cigale  et  la  Fourmi,"  explaining 
painfully  what  bise  means ;  that  cicalas  do  not  eat  worms ;  that 
out  is  spelt  aout,  and  so  on,  let  the  hint  given  by  the  poet 
himself  be  taken,  and  the  collection  of  fables  be  presented  to 
the  pupil  as  une  ample  comedie  a,  cent  actes  divers. 

If  the  class  is  sufficiently  advanced  to  understand  spoken 
French,  let  the  teacher,  using  that  tongue,  tell  his  pupils 
about  the  France  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  its  splendor  and 
misery,  its  division  into  provinces  almost  as  much  separated 
the  one  from  the  other  as  if  they  were  foreign  countries,  its 
magnificent  court  of  Versailles,  its  nobility,  its  clergy,  its 
bourgeoisie  and  its  peasantry.  Let  him  picture  the  times  and 
the  men ;  let  him  make  La  Fontaine,  the  bonhomme,  live  again 
before  the  class ;  show  him  wandering  in  woods,  and  by  river 
and  brook,  or  silent  and  observant  in  society,  or  bright  and  witty 
with  the  friends ;  and  then,  taking  each  fable,  make  plain  each 
different  act,  show  the  alternate  farce  and  drama,  comedy  and 
tragedy ;  the  home  scenes,  the  episodes  of  peasant  life,  the 
hits  at  king  and  courtier,  the  portraits  of  man,  the  mirror  held 
up  to  nature.  At  once  the  class  will  brighten,  and  instead  of 
voting  La  Fontaine  a  bore,  follow  with  real  interest  and  ever- 
renewed  pleasure  each  successive  scene.  Let  not  the  transla- 
tion be  a  desperately  dull  transliteration,  but  a  vivacious,  racy, 
idiomatic  reproduction  of  the  original,  retaining  as  much  of 
the  bloom,  of  the  beauty,  of  the  esprit,  subtle  and  keen,  as 
may  suffer  transposition  into  another  tongue. 

So  with  the  dramatists.  A  vivid  representation  of  the 
times,  a  clear  exposition  of  the  conditions  under  which  they 
worked,  a  brief  summary  of  the  plot  if  desired,  and  a  reading 


NOTES  ON  THE  TEACHING  OP  FRENCH.       89 

of  the  text  from  which  monotony  is  carefully  excluded.  One 
can  do  serious  and  thorough  work  without  preternatural 
gravity  and  excessive  boring  of  pupils.  Lighten  the  tragedy 
as  much  as  possible  —  there  is  not  one  piece  which  will  not  bear 
this  treatment;  bring  out  strongly  the  fine  passages,  the 
striking  scenes ;  summarize  the  duller  and  less  important ; 
read  well  when  reading  to  the  class ;  possess  your  soul  in 
patience  when  the  class  reads  to  you.  As  for  the  comedy,  it 
will  always  take  care  of  itself. 


PRACTICAL  AND  PSYCHOLOGICAL   TESTS   OF 
MODERN   LANGUAGE   STUDY. 

BY  PROFESSOR  A.  LODEMAN,  MICHIGAN  STATE   NORMAL  SCHOOL, 

The  student  of  educational  affairs  who  has  devoted  any 
attention  to  the  recent  history  of  modern  language  study, 
must  have  been  impressed  with  its  progress  and  development 
during  the  last  few  decades  in  all  civilized  countries.  The 
activity  in  this  field  has  been  such  that  it  may  well  be  com* 
pared  with  the  revival  of  classical  study  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury ;  more  than  one  striking  parallel  might  be  drawn  between 
that  period  and  the  present,  and,  as  is  so  frequently  the  case, 
our  less  biased  view  of  past  conditions  might  make  it  easier 
for  us  to  see  things  of  immediate  concern  in  their  true  light. 

The  question  what  effect  such  an  event  is  likely  to  have 
upon  education  in  general,  what  relation  it  bears  to  the  civil- 
ization of  the  age,  is  one  in  which  all  thoughtful  people 
will  easily  be  interested.  In  the  minds  of  those  who  take 
an  active  part  in  educational  affairs,  this  question  naturally 
assumes  a  somewhat  more  definite  and  restricted  form. 
We  ask :  Why  do  we  teach  modern  languages  ?  and  it  is 
this  question  I  will  endeavor  to  answer.  It  seems  advis- 
able, however,  for  the  present  purpose,  to  limit  the  term 
"  modern  languages  "  so  as  to  exclude  the  vernacular ;  not,  in- 
deed, because  the  English  does  not  deserve  the  first  and  most 
earnest  consideration  in  any  discussion  of  the  subject  of  living 
languages,  but  because,  for  that  very  reason,  and  for  others  as 
well,  it  is  more  appropriately  treated  by  itself.  My  remarks 
will  also,  for  obvious  reasons,  have  reference  mainly  to  French 
and  German  only. 


OF   MODERN   LANGUAGE   STUDY.  91 

The  first  answer  to  our  question  may  be  given  in  the 
words  of  another  : 18  We  teach  modern  languages,  "essentially 
because  they  are  so  supremely  useful"  Let  no  one,  not  even 
the  votary  of  the  sublimest  idealism,  for  a  moment  be  shocked 
by  this  confession  !  We  say  we  teach  modern  languages  be- 
cause they  are  useful ;  who  will  advocate  the  teaching  of  use- 
less things  ?  We  do  not  say,  however,  that  we  teach  French 
and  German  because  they  can  under  all  circumstances  be  put 
to  immediate  use  in  any  special  industry  or  trade ;  that  is  im- 
possible, as  will  appear  farther  on. 

What  we  do  claim  is,  first,  that  the  modern  languages  are 
extremely  useful  as  a  means  to  literary  culture  and  to  a  liberal 
education.  "We  believe,"  Macaulay  wrote  in  1837,  "that 
the  books  which  have  been  written  in  the  languages  of  Western 
Europe  during  the  last  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  are  of 
greater  value  than  all  the  books  which  at  the  beginning  of 
that  period  were  extant  in  the  worM."  *  If  this  statement 
might  possibly  have  seemed  too  strong  at  the  time  when  made, 
it  certainly  cannot  be  considered  so  now,  with  the  immense 
additional  literature  of  the  last  half  century  thrown  into  one 
scale  of  the  balance.  The  languages  which  furnish  the  key 
to  a  large  portion  of  this  treasure  are  indeed  useful ;  and  John 
Stuart  Blackie,  late  professor  of  Greek  in  Edinburgh  Uni- 
versity, may  well  say  that  "the  languages  which  claim  most 
loudly  the  regard  of  an  English-speaking  gentleman  of  the 
present  day,  whether  on  the  east  or  the  west  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  are  French  and  German."  Next  to  the  French  and 
German  he  names  the  Latin,  Greek,  and  Italian.2 

The  claims  of  modern  literature,  with  reference  to  its 
aesthetic  value  and  moral  effect,  and  as  a  means  of  a  more  gen- 
eral diffusion  of  correct  taste,  have  been  discussed  by  able 
writers,  who  assign  to  it  the  first  place  in  the  intellectual  cul- 
ture of  our  time.6  Lowell  has  pointed  out  how  much  the 
great  English  writers  are  indebted  for  their  style  to  other 

1  Easay  on  Lord  Bacon.  2  N.Y.  Independent,  Nov.  26, 1891. 


92  PKACTICAL   AND    PSYCHOLOGICAL  TESTS 

moderns:  "Did  not  Spenser  .  .  .  form  himself  on  French 
models  ?  "  he  asks.  "  Did  not  Chaucer  and  Gower,  the  shapers 
of  our  tongue,  draw  from  the  same  sources  ?  ...  Is  not  the 
verse  of  ' Paradise  Lost'  moulded  on  that  of  the  'Divina 
Comedia '  ?  Did  not  Dry  den's  prose  and  Pope's  verse  profit 
by  Parisian  example  ?  Nay,  in  our  time  is  it  not  whis- 
pered that  more  than  one  of  our  masters  of  style  in  English, 
and  they,  too,  among  the  chief  apostles  of  classic  culture,  owe 
more  of  this  mastery  to  Paris  than  to  Athens  and  Rome  ?  " 7 
And  as  to  ideas,  the  same  great  writer  exclaims:  "And 
shall  we  say  that  the  literature  of  the  last  three  centuries  is 
incompetent  to  put  a  healthy  strain  upon  the  more  strenuous 
faculties  of  the  mind  ?  That  it  does  not  appeal  to  or  satisfy 
the  mind's  loftier  desires  ?  That  Dante,  Machiavelli,  Mon- 
taigne, Bacon,  Shakespeare,  Cervantes,  Pascal,  Calderon,  Les- 
sing,  and  he  of  Weimar,  in  whom  Carlyle  and  so  many 
others  have  found  their  University,  —  that  none  of  these  set 
our  thinking  gear  in  motion  to  as  good  purpose  as  any  an- 
cient of  them  all  ?  Is  it  less  instructive  to  study  the  growth 
of  modern  ideas  than  of  ancient  ?  " 7  I  will  dismiss  this  point 
with  the  words  of  President  Cox,  of  the  University  of  Cincin- 
nati, "  I  believe  that  whilst  we  could  not  afford  to  lose  the 
old  culture,  we  cannot  afford  to  neglect  the  new."    (M  iv.,  3.) 

It  is  further  claimed  that  the  modern  languages  are  useful, 
nay,  indispensable  aids  in  the  pursuit  of  other  branches  of 
knowledge.  First  of  all,  I  mention  the  study  of  English. 
"  Disguise  it  as  we  may,"  wrote  Professor  Hunt  of  Princeton, 
ten  years  ago,  "it  is  not  the  most  consoling  reflection  of  the 
patriotic  Englishman  or  American,  that  as  yet  the  ablest 
researches  into  our  vernacular  are  the  product  of  Continental, 
if  not  of  German,  scholarship.  .  .  .  English  grammar,  most 
especially,  has  been  studied  in  Germany  from  the  scientific 
standpoint,  with  constant  reference  to  primitive  principles 
and  forms." x    Not  quite  ten  years  later  another  high  author- 

»  Princeton  Review,  1881,  pp.  227,  231. 


OF  MODERN   LANGUAGE   STUDY.  93 

ity  could  make  the  statement  that  it  was  no  longer  necessary 
for  the  American  student  of  English  to  go  abroad  to  be 
taught  the  earlier  forms  of  his  mother  tongue;  that  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  other  Teutonic  languages  were  taught  in  all  the 
centres  of  learning  in  this  country.  And  the  number  of 
institutions  which  have  in  recent  years  extended  their  courses 
in  English  is  indeed  very  great.  On  the  other  hand,  a  large 
proportion  of  the  leading  works  on  the  English  language  and 
literature  are  still  written  in  foreign  languages,  and  the  same 
is  true  of  articles  in  periodicals.  A  glance  at  recent  numbers 
of  Englische  Studien  and  Anglia  shows  that  all  contributions 
to  the  latter,  and  sixteen  out  of  seventeen  to  the  former,  are 
in  German.  Aside  from  this  use  of  foreign  languages  in  the 
pursuit  of  advanced  scholarship  in  English,  the  study  of  for-" 
eign  languages  is  itself  one  of  the  best  means  of  learning  one's 
own.  "  We  have  learned,"  says  one  of  the  greatest  American 
scholars,  "  that  the  round-about  course,  through  other  tongues, 
to  the  comprehension  and  mastery  of  our  own,  is  the  shortest." 10 

The  advanced  student  of  the  ancient  classics,  of  philology, 
and  of  archaeology,  can  no  more  pursue  his  study  without 
French  and  German,  than  an  ocean  steamer  can  run  from 
New  York  to  San  Francisco  by  the  overland  route. 

In  Mathematics  we  have  it  from  good  authority  that  ten 
valuable  works  in  either  French  or  German  are  published  to 
one  in  English,  so  that  it  is  impossible  to  make  up  a  good 
mathematical  library  of  English  works  alone. 

Books  in  the  Physical  and  Natural  Sciences  are  perhaps 
translated  more  frequently  than  those  in  other  departments, 
but  here,  too,  much  that  is  of  the  highest  value  to  the  special- 
ist can  be  found  only  in  some  foreign  language.  There  is  a 
recent  statement  of  Dr.  S.  Sheldon  to  the  effect  that  Wie- 
dermann's  Annalen  der  Physik,  and  the  Jahresberichte  of  the 
German  Chemical  Society,  "  contain  more  original  matter  each 
month  than  is  published  in  America  during  a  whole  year."  1 

1  Pedagogical  Seminary,  III.,  p.  488. 


94  PRACTICAL  AND  PSYCHOLOGICAL   TESTS 

Until  recently  the  Science  of  Education  might  almost  have 
been  considered  a  German  science.  Within  the  last  twenty- 
years,  however,  the  contributions  in  English,  French,  and  other 
languages  to  pedagogical  literature  have  been  numerous  and 
important.  Still,  an  examination  of  the  monthly  bulletins 
of  publications  in  this  field,  or  of  educational  bibliographies, 
shows  a  preponderance  of  German  works  ;  and  the  references  in 
English  treatises  on  the  science  of  education  are  mostly  to 
German  authorities. 

In  an  historical  and  critical  work  on  Aryan  Philology, 
published  some  twelve  years  ago  by  an  Italian,1  about  four- 
fifths  of  the  books  cited  are  German. 

In  short,  to  use  the  words  of  President  Eliot  of  Harvard, 
"  the  philologists,  archaeologists,  metaphysicians,  physicians, 
physicists,  naturalists,  chemists,  economists,  engineers,  archi- 
tects, artists,  and  musicians  all  agree  that  a  knowledge  of  these 
languages  is  indispensable  to  the  intelligent  pursuit  of  any  one 
of  their  respective  subjects  beyond  its  elements."  35  Or,  to 
quote  the  president  of  another  great  university,  "  A  liberal  edu- 
cation absolutely  requires  that  every  English-speaking  person 
should  have  a  knowledge  of  French  and  German  also ;  for  it  is 
from  the  French  and  Germans  that  in  these  days  we  receive 
the  most  important  contributions  to  literary  and  physical 
science."  32 

I  now  pass  to  my  second  answer  to  the  question  "  Why  do 
we  teach  modern  languages,"  which  is,  —  On  account  of  their 
disciplinary  value.  Here  I  must  first  of  all  guard  against  a 
misunderstanding.  Mental  discipline  cannot  be  understood  as 
something  separate  or  separable  from  mental  activity  —  every 
kind  of  mental  activity,  and  hence  the  acquisition  of  any  kind 
of  useful  knowledge,  yields  discipline.  "  The  connection  and 
interdependence  of  the  two,"  says  Professor  W.  D.  Whitney* 
"  are  complete.     No  discipline  without  valuable  knowledge  j 

i  Pe*zi :  "  Aryan  Philology." 


OF   MODERN    LANGUAGE   STUDY.  95 

all  valuable  knowledge  available  for  discipline  ;  the  discipline 
in  proportion  to  the  amount  and  value  of  the  knowledge 
acquired :  these  are  fundamental  truths  in  the  theory  of 
education.  ...  To  ask  what  knowledge  is  disciplinary  is  the 
question  of  ignorance.  The  true  question  to  ask  is,  What 
kind  of  discipline  does  any  given  knowledge  afford,  to  what 
does  it  conduct?"10  Discipline,  as  we  shall  see  farther  on, 
depends  rather  upon  method  than  upon  subject-matter;  for 
even  if  we  follow  Professor  Laurie  and  distinguish  between 
discipline  and  training,  and  say  that  the  mind  is  disciplined 
by  fixing  it  on  the  formal  or  abstract,  and  trained  by  occu- 
pation with  the  real  or  concrete,  it  will  be  found  that  each 
branch  of  study  has  its  formal  and  its  real  side,  and  it  is 
a  question  of  method  which  side  is  to  be  emphasized.  Lan- 
guage, for  example,  may  be  taught  "as  a  concrete  subject; 
that  is  to  say,  with  special  reference  to  the  substance  of 
thought,"  in  which  case  the  pupil's  mind  is  carried  through 
processes  of  thinking,  and  is  thereby  trained  ;  or  it  may  be 
studied  with  reference  to  "the  relations  of  the  word- vestment," 
in  which  case  the  mind  deals  with  the  formal,  the  abstract, 
the  grammatical,  and  thereby  is  disciplined.  (12  Lectures  II. 
and  IV.)  It  goes  without  saying  that  the  true  method  has  to 
provide  for  both. 

I  need  not  dwell  upon  the  disciplinary  value  of  language- 
study  in  general ;  it  is  self-evident,  since  language  is  the 
instrument  which  renders  all  mental  power  effective,  "  the  me- 
dium by  which  our  thinking  processes  are  carried  on."  The 
subject  of  my  discussion  calls  only  for  a  brief  presentation  of 
the  relative  disciplinary  value  of  living  foreign  languages. 

Mental  discipline,  in  any  higher  sense,  implies  continued 
effort  and  use  of  the  judgment.  Therefore,  a  special  disci- 
plinary power  has  been  claimed  for  the  ancient  languages  be- 
cause they  are  so  difficult.  But  this  superior  difficulty  is  by 
no  means  conceded  by  those  who,  having  acquired  a  thorough 
and  tolerably  complete  knowledge  of  both  ancient  and  modern 


96  PRACTICAL  AND   PSYCHOLOGICAL  TESTS 

languages,  have  investigated  the  question  of  their  relative 
difficulty.  The  distinguished  classical  scholar  Madwig  has 
recently  been  quoted  by  a  committee  of  the  Norwegian  Diet 
as  an  authority  for  the  superior  pedagogical  value  of  Latin  and 
Greek ;  and  to  what  better  authority  could  one  appeal  ?  Yet 
Madwig  does  not  claim  for  these  languages  a  greater  intrinsic 
disciplinary  value  or  logical  structure,  but  he  attributes  their 
special  educational  value  to  the  circumstance  that  they  are 
more  foreign  to  us  and  cannot  be  acquired  from  others  by 
mere  practice.28  The  same  point  had  been  made  earlier  by 
Beneke.  In  other  words,  the  ancient  languages,  when  studied 
thoroughly,  yield  better  intellectual  results  than  living  lan- 
guages taught  superficially. 

According  to  Beneke,  a  profound  thinker  and  one  of  the 
ablest  defenders  of  ancient  classical  studies,  Greek  and  Latin 
are  decidedly  more  difficult  than  French  and  English ; "  but 
it  is  only  too  evident  that  his  conception  of  the  aims  and 
methods  of  the  study  of  French,  as  compared  with  those 
of  Latin  and  Greek,  is  very  low.  So  much  has  been  written 
on  the  comparative  pedagogical  value  of  the  ancient  and  the 
modern  languages,  that  a  bibliography  of  the  literature  would 
fill  a  small  volume.  (See,  e.g.,  »  p.  375,  and  80  p.  506.)  But 
as  far  as  my  knowledge  of  the  literature  goes,  it  is  only  in 
recent  times  that  men  have  renounced  the  unnecessary  task 
of  proving  that  little  French,  poorly  taught,  is  not  equal  to 
much  Latin,  well  taught.  Beneke  does  not  believe  that  the 
"outward  elements"  of  Greek  and  Latin  possess  much  or  any 
educational  power ;  yet  it  is  these  elements  that  are  often  so 
highly  praised  as  means  of  mental  gymnastics  !  As  to  an- 
cient literature,  it  is,  in  his  judgment,  superior  to  modern  in 
grand  simplicity  and  beauty  of  form,  but  far  inferior  in  rich- 
ness and  sublimity  of  thought.  It  is  especially  adapted  to 
the  young.  " The  educated  man"  he  says,  " will,  as  a  rule, 
derive  richer  and  more  vigorous  food  from  German  and  English 
authors ;  .  .  .  but  this  richer  and  more  vigorous  food  is  not 


OF   MODERN    LANGUAGE   STUDY.  97 

yet  suitable  for  the  young."  (22  II.,  p.  122.)  A  similar 
thought  has  been  expressed  by  an  American  scholar  of  our  own 
day,  who  says,  "  The  study  of  modern  life  and  the  language  in 
which  it  is  crystallized,  is  not  milk  for  babes,  but  meat  for 
strong  men."  9 

Professor  Bernhard  Schmitz,  in  his  Encyclopadie  des  philo- 
logischen  Studiums  der  modernen  Sprachen,  admits  the  greater 
difficulty  of  Latin  and  Greek  grammar,  but  does  not  con- 
sider the  study  of  grammar  the  principal  difficulty  in  learn- 
ing a  language,  but  rather  the  wealth  of  the  language  it- 
self, especially  the  phraseology ;  and  with  respect  to  this 
he  claims  all  languages  are  equally  difficult.21  Others  who 
have  made  comparisons  in  the  same  direction  do  not  even 
concede  greater  grammatical  difficulties  to  the  ancient  lan- 
guages. And  it  would,  indeed,  be  no  easy  matter  to  show  why 
to  comprehend  the  delicate  shades  in  the  use  of  tenses  and 
moods  in  French  "  does  not  demand  as  severe  and  high  an  ex- 
ercise of  the  discriminating  faculty  as  to  comprehend  the 
same  in  Latin,  or  even  in  Greek ; " 17  or  why  the  correct  use 
of  the  German  prepositions  does  not  call  for  as  strict  atten- 
tion as  that  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  prepositions  ;  or  why,  in 
translating,  "  the  powers  of  analysis  and  synthesis  are  not  as 
much  needed,  and  as  much  cultivated,  by  a  thorough  mastery 
of  the  German  as  of  the  Greek."  16  Does  not  a  language  like 
the  French,  which  requires  for  an  exhaustive,  though  brief 
treatment  of  the  definite  article  twenty-six  pages  and  forty- 
two  different  heads,  and  the  conjugation  of  which  contains 
forty-five  more  forms  than  the  Latin, 87  offer  sufficient  oppor- 
tunity for  mental  discipline  ?  Dr.  Wilhelm  Schrader,  Pro- 
fessor of  Pedagogy  in  the  University  of  Halle,  justly  ascribes 
eminent  disciplinary  value,  both  formal  and  real,  to  the  study 
of  French,  if  properly  pursued.     (28  pp.  509-512.) 

Professor  Babbitt,  of  Columbia  College,  who  has  had 
experience  in  teaching  ancient  and  modern  languages,  has 
examined  in  detail  the  advantages  to  be   derived  from   the 


98  PBACTICAL  AND   PSYCHOLOGICAL  TESTS 

pursuit  of  either,  and  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  disci- 
pline in  both  cases  is  equally  valuable  :  he  introduces,  how- 
ever, the  question  of  pace,  and  believes  that  the  opportunities 
for  discipline  lie  at  a  more  advanced  stage  in  the  modern 
languages  than  in  the  ancient;  so  that  a  modern  language 
student,  to  gain  the  same  amount  of  discipline,  must  go  over 
more  ground  than  the  student  of  Latin  and  Greek ;  and  for 
this  the  course  of  study  and  the  method  must  provide.9 

We  find  that  in  every  case  where  the  disciplinary  value  of 
modern  language  study  is  depreciated,  the  reason  is  to  be 
found  in  an  unfair  comparison  in  which  the  method  is  lost 
sight  of :  "  Just  in  proportion  as  methods  have  been  bettered 
and  the  true  spirit  of  linguistic  training  developed,  the 
modern  languages  have  risen  higher  in  the  scale  of  potent 
agencies  for  mind-culture."  n 

While  feeling  entirely  free  from  any  desire  to  detract  from 
the  merits  of  ancient  language  study  as  a  means  of  higher 
education,  we  cannot  but  recognize  the  fact  that  our  age  is 
fast  outgrowing  the  belief  in  any  miraculous  power  of  disci- 
pline peculiar  to  Latin  and  Greek.  This  change  of  opinion  is 
going  on  in  all  civilized  countries. 14 

Before  leaving  this  question,  it  may  be  well  to  enter  a 
general  protest  against  the  false  assumption  that  the  more 
difficult  study  always  yields  the  greater  mental  discipline.  If 
such  were  the  case,  other  languages  would  be  far  ahead  of 
any  we  have  been  considering;  as,  for  example,  the  Nahuatl 
of  old  Mexico,  the  verb  of  which  has  eight  hundred  and  sixty- 
five  regularly  derived  forms,  or  the  Otchipwe',  in  which  every 
verb  is  capable  of  eight  million  variations.14  And  since  the 
difficulty  for  the  learner  increases  as  the  teacher  deviates  from 
the  processes  suggested  by  psychological  laws,  it  would  follow 
that,  the  poorer  the  teaching,  the  greater  the  discipline.  But 
the  truth  is,  there  is  scarcely  anything  hard  for  the  average 
pupil,  if  the  ideas  are  properly  presented.9 

The  opinion  may  be  held  by  some  that,  while  the  modern 


OF  MODERN  LANGUAGE   STUDY.  99 

languages  are  valuable  for  general  mental  discipline,  they 
cannot  furnish  that  special  philological  training  resulting 
from  the  advanced  study  of  Latin  and  Greek.  But  the  least 
acquaintance  with  the  history  of  the  growth  of  such  lan- 
guages as  the  English,  German,  and  French,  and  with  the 
literature  and  methods  of  modern  philology,  must  convince 
any  one  that  such  a  view  is  untenable.  "  The  wealth  of 
material  they  [the  modern  languages]  offer  for  philological 
training  and  historical  investigation  is  becoming  more  appre- 
ciated every  day."  n  "  Had  we  nothing  else  with  yet  stronger 
recommendations  to  apply  to,"  says  Professor  W.  D.  Whitney, 
"the  German  and  French,  especially  the  former,  would  answer 
to  us  all  the  essential  disciplinary  purposes  of  philological 
study ;  as,  indeed,  to  many  they  are  and  must  be  made  to 
answer  those  purposes.  As  the  case  stands,  they  are  among 
the  indispensable  parts  of  a  disciplinary  education."  10 

If  we  apply  to  the  study  of  living  languages  the  test  of 
systematic  psychology,  it  appears  that  there  is  not  a  single 
mental  activity  which  is  not  called  into  play  and  stimulated 
in  the  pursuit  of  this  study,  if  properly  taught,  beginning  at 
the  foot  of  the  scale,  with  sensation,  up  to  the  highest  uses  of 
the  reasoning  power  and  the  judgment.  But  such  inquiry 
into  the  influence  of  modern  language  study  upon  special 
mental  activities  involves  necessarily  the  question  of  methods, 
upon  which  it  depends.  I  will  therefore  pass  to  the  second 
question :  — 

HOW  SHOULD  WE  TEACH  THE  MODERN  LANGUAGES  ? 

The  number  of  possible  methods  of  teaching  languages  is 
infinite.  The  text-books  may  be  counted  by  thousands  :  a 
bibliography,  doubtless  incomplete,  of  French  grammars  alone, 
published  between  the  years  1500  and  1800,  includes  six 
hundred  and  fifty  titles.24  A  large  proportion  of  such  works 
bears  the  sub-title  "A  New  Method."  And  if  we  take 
into  account  the  various  uses  made  of  the  same  text-book  by 


100  PRACTICAL  AND   PSYCHOLOGICAL  TESTS 

different  teachers,  the  actual  number  of  different  methods  of 
teaching,  it  would  seem,  must  be  legion.  Many  of  the 
methods  advocated  or  practised  by  eminent  educators  in  the 
past  have  more  than  an  historical  interest  to  the  teacher  of 
to-day  :  the  views  of  men  like  Erasmus,  Melanchthon,  Ratich, 
Comenius,  Locke,  the  Jesuit  teachers,  of  Jacotot,  Hamilton, 
Marcel,  Prendergast,  Heness,  Sauveur,  and  others,  are  suggest- 
ive and  stimulating,  and  the  history  of  their  methods  is  in- 
structive. But  in  all  the  literature  of  this  class  we  do  not 
find  the  true  answer  to  our  question  "  How  should  we  teach 
the  modern  languages  ?  "  We  must  give  it  from  our  own 
standpoint,  in  the  light  of  the  knowledge  and  experience  of 
the  present  age,  being  guided  in  the  main  by  two  considera- 
tions :  The  method,  that  is,  the  "  way"  must  lead  to  the  end  in 
view,  and  it  must  be  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  mind-growth. 
The  ultimate  test  of  every  method  must  be  the  psychological. 
Without  it  we  are  liable  to  commit  the  gravest  errors  and 
not  be  aware  of  them  ;  mere  practical  results  cannot  be  con- 
sidered as  decisive :  the  question  how  the  results  were  obtained 
is  of  the  utmost  importance. 

The  task  of  learning  a  language  consists  in  the  acquisition 
of  the  material  (vocabulary,  phraseology,  idioms)  and  the 
mastery  of  the  principles  or  rules  which  govern  the  use  of 
the  material  (inflections,  syntax).  If  we  attack  the  material 
first,  i.e.,  the  living  language  itself,  we  follow  the  analytical 
method ;  we  begin,  for  instance,  with  a  printed  page  or  sen- 
tence, or  a  spoken  sentence,  and  by  analysis  study  the  parts 
and  their  relations.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  attack  first  the 
principles  governing  the  use  of  the  various  parts  of  speech 
and  their  combinations,  we  proceed  synthetically,  construct- 
ing the  language,  i.e.,  the  sentence,  representing  the  unit  of 
language,  out  of  its  elements,  according  to  certain  rules.  The 
former  method  may  also  be  called  the  practical,  and  the  latter 
the  theoretical,  or  grammar  method.  Then  we  may  begin 
with  either  one  of  these  two  methods,  and  soon  pass  to  the 


OP  MODERN  LANGU40&  STXJDY.  1.01 

other,  and  combine  the  two,  so  that  we  have,  in  addition,  the 
analytico-synthetic  and  the  synthetico-analytic  methods.  (It 
should  be  remarked  that  the  terms  analytic  and  synthetic 
may  also  be  applied  to  the  language-material,  instead  of  to  the 
process ;  in  that  case  the  meanings  of  the  terms  synthetic 
method  and  analytic  method  are  reversed,  the  former  denot- 
ing the  method  dealing  with  language  in  its  synthetic  form, 
the  latter  the  method  dealing  with  language  in  its  analyzed, 
decomposed  form.  Thus  Henry  Sweet  speaks  of  "the  syn- 
thetic methods  of  the  Middle  Ages,  by  which  sentences  were 
grasped  as  wholes,  not  analyzed  andjpwtf  together  like  pieces  of 
mosaic  work.") 27 

I  have  set  down  as  the  principal  aim  in  the  teaching  of 
modern  languages,  their  use  as  a  means  of  literary  culture  and 
of  information  in  various  departments  of  knowledge.  Such 
use  presupposes  first  of  all  the  ability  to  read  the  languages. 

Psychology  teaches  that  the  mind  proceeds  from  a  knowl- 
edge of  "  wholes  "  to  that  of  their  parts  (analysis),  and  from 
the  concrete  to  the  abstract.  We  are,  then,  forcibly  pointed 
to  the  analytical  and  analytico-synthetic  methods  ;  simple  read- 
ing, not  systematic  grammar,  forms  the  first  step.  An  ele- 
mentary grammar  method,  with  plenty  of  illustrations  in  the 
foreign  language,  is  not,  however,  to  be  condemned,  since  it 
lends  itself  to  the  analytical  way  of  procedure.  Though  we 
care  at  the  start  more  for  the  printed  than  for  the  spoken 
language,  pronunciation  is  not  to  be  neglected  (as  some  methods 
demand),  because  the  beginner  will  attach  some  sound-image 
(Gehorsvorstellung)  to  the  printed  word,  whether  we  wish  it 
or  not ;  and  the  only  safe  way  of  preventing  false  sound-images 
from  fixing  themselves  in  his  mind  is  to  teach  him  the  correct 
sounds.  Thus,  the  knowledge  of  language  begins,  where  all 
knowledge  begins,  with  sensation  :  audible  and  visible  signs, 
acquired  through  the  senses  of  hearing  and  of  sight,  form 
the  basis  of  clear  percepts.  It  should  be  noted  that,  in  the 
study  of  foreign  languages,  the  foreign  word,  phrase,  or  sen- 


102  PRACTICAL   AND  PSYCHOLOGICAL  TESTS 

tence,  as  the  case  may  be,  becomes  the  object  of  sense-per- 
ception ;  the  contents  of  these,  as  well  as  their  names  in  the 
mother  tongne,  are  supposed  to  be  known,  at  least  approxi- 
mately ;  the  foreign  sign,  or  form  of  expression,  for  a  familiar 
idea  becomes  a  new  object  of  perception. 

The  student  desirous  of  learning  to  read  a  foreign  language 
for  the  sake  of  an  accurate  understanding  of  the  subject-mat- 
ter (and  this  is  what  our  purpose  necessarily  implies),  must 
translate  into  his  own  vernacular  until  he  learns  to  understand 
the  foreign  without  translation. 

Psychology  teaches  that  the  mind  advances  to  new  knowl- 
edge on  the  basis  of  what  it  already  knows. 

Hence,  the  foreign  language  is  to  be  studied  by  comparison 
with  the  mother  tongue ;  translation  into  English,  therefore, 
is  to  be  begun  at  the  very  outset,  not  to  be  avoided,  as  some 
methods  demand. 

From  perception,  i.e.,  knowing  what  is  present  (to  sight  or 
hearing),  the  mind  passes  to  conception,  i.e.,  knowing  what  is 
not  present  to  the  senses :  words  and  phrases  must  be  in  the 
pupil's  mind.  Hence,  such  parts  of  the  lesson  as  the  pupils 
are  expected  to  retain  in  memory  must  be  given  by  them  for 
their  English  equivalents :  Translation  into  the  foreign  lan- 
guage is  necessary  from  the  beginning ;  it  will  at  first  be  con- 
fined to  the  rendering  of  phrases  and  sentences,  but  will  have 
to  be  extended  to  the  translation  of  entire  paragraphs  in  ad- 
vanced classes,  in  order  to  afford  opportunity  for  the  applica- 
tion of  general  principles. 

Mental  discipline  —  one  of  our  aims  in  teaching  living  lan- 
guages —  is  impossible  without  the  exercise  of  the  higher 
activities  of  the  mind,  of  the  reasoning  power  and  of  the 
judgment.  Again,  no  accurate  and  reliable  knowledge  of  a 
language,  such  as  its  use  for  the  purposes  of  culture  and  infor- 
mation demands,  can  be  gained  without  as  tudy  of  the  princi- 
ples and  laws  governing  its  use.  The  study  of  grammar, 
therefore,  is  indispensable.     We  now  proceed,  in  accordance 


OF  MODERN  LANGUAGE   STUDY.  103 

with  the  laws  of  mind-growth,  from  simple  concepts  to  general 
concepts,  to  classes  with  certain  general  characteristics,  from 
the  concrete  to  the  abstract.  "  We  must  base  all  generaliza- 
tion on  the  particular  and  concrete,  which  alone  gives  the 
general  and  abstract  any  meaning.  Rules  of  syntax  are  gen- 
eralizations, and  they  are  to  be  constructed  out  of  the  ini- 
tiatory reading-lesson  by  the  pupil,  with  the  help  of  the 
master." u  Or,  at  least,  all  general  rules  are  to  be  studied 
in  close  connection  with  concrete  examples,  and  the  reading- 
lesson  should  furnish  these.  This  calls  for  reasoning  and 
judgment. 

The  reasoning  out  the  meaning  of  words  from  the  con- 
text constitutes  another  valuable  means  of  mental  discipline. 
u  This  is  not  blind  guessing ;  it  is  legitimate  reasoning  from  the 
known  to  the  unknown."  (a5  vi.,  60,61 ;  v.,  10,11.)  Methods 
like  Hamilton's  and  Jacotot's,  founded  upon  the  use  of  inter- 
linear or  lateral  translations,  are  in  general  not  to  be  recom- 
mended. The  dictionary  should  be  used,  but  not  abused. 
Sight-reading  in  the  class-room  should  receive  due  attention. 

Translation  requires  the  abstraction  of  the  thought  from 
the  concrete  form  in  which  it  is  expressed,  in  order  to  vest  it 
with  a  new  form.  Discrimination,  both  between  different 
forms  of  expression  and  between  various  shades  of  meaning 
and  thouglU,  is  constantly  needed,  and  no  other  method  of 
studying  the  mother  tongue  is,  in  this  respect,  equal  to  this  prac- 
tice of  translating  from  a  foreign  language.  But  any  method 
which  discards  the  use  of  the  mother  tongue,  as,  for  example, 
the  so-called  "Natural  Method,"  is  of  inferior  educational 
value. 

Our  aim  in  teaching  modern  languages  implies  a  ready  use 
of  them ;  this  means,  the  pupil  must  form  the  habit  of  apply- 
ing his  knowledge.  The  laws  of  habit  (psycho-physiological) 
show  that  repeated  action  and  essentially  uniform  method 
of  action  are  necessary  to  form  habitual  action.81  "Every 
acquisition  in  the  shape  of  words  or  generalizations,  accord- 


104  PRACTICAL  AND  PSYCHOLOGICAL  TESTS 

ingly,  must  be  turned  to  use,  from  the  beginning."  The  most 
important  words,  phrases,  and  rules  must  be  used  frequently; 
rare  words  and  expressions  will  have  to  be  passed  over 
more  rapidly.  Every  work  read  for  the  purpose  of  language- 
study  ought  to  furnish  a  number  (say  from  fifty  to  a  hundred) 
of  useful  phrases  and  idioms  to  be  firmly  fixed  in  the  mind. 
This  should  largely  be  done  by  oral  exercises.  Oral  exercises 
provide  the  best  means  of  acquiring  promptness  in  the  use  of 
the  linguistic  material  and  in  the  application  of  rules.  This 
practice  is  also  due  those  members  of  a  class  who  wish 
to  converse  in  the  foreign  language;  and  experience  teaches 
that  a  considerable  degree  of  fluency  in  speaking  may  be 
attained  by  this  method,  if  teacher  and  pupil  follow  it  con- 
scientiously through  the  course.  The  general  method  pre- 
cludes, however,  the  teaching  of  conversation  for  special  busi- 
ness purposes,  or  for  foreign  travel,  which  would  involve  the 
learning  of  special  vocabularies  and  technical  phraseologies. 

Copious  reading  is  another  means  of  rendering  the  pupil, 
through  practice,  familiar  with  the  common  material  of  the 
language,  and  with  the  laws  governing  its  use.  It  is  equivalent 
to  a  constant  review  of  what  is  of  most  frequent  occurrence  in 
the  language.  Besides,  it  has  been  well  said,  in  the  study  of 
modern  languages  the  student  should  use  the  Will  "  in  keep- 
ing up  the  pace,  rather  than  struggling  with  difficulties  that 
are  beyond  his  powers."  (9  p.  54.) 

Correct  use  of  the  language  is  always  to  be  insisted  upon. 
This,  especially  in  the  oral  exercises,  makes  concentration 
imperative  and  serves  in  an  eminent  degree  as  a  discipline  of 
the  Will.  At  the  same  time,  the  Will  is  stimulated  by  the 
attractiveness  of  the  exercise.  A  superficial  conversation- 
method  which  relies  upon  imitation  alone,  and  neglects  the 
application  of  general  laws  to  special  cases,  does  not  strengthen 
the  will-power. 

Practice  in  the  use  of  the  foreign  language  cultivates  the 
Imagination.     The  imagination  is  active  in  reproducing  what 


OF   MODERN   LANGUAGE   STUDY.  105 

has  been  acquired ;  it  "  selects,  modifies,  arranges,  combines." 
A  pure  reading-method,  like  Marcel's,  is  less  effective  in 
this  respect.  The  reading  and  translating  of  foreign  authors 
is  of  the  highest  value  to  the  development  of  the  imaginative 
faculty,  and  conversation  helps  to  lend  vividness  to  the  pic- 
tures in  the  mind. 

I  have  not  mentioned  the  cultivation  of  the  Memory.  It 
is  evident  from  the  foregoing  considerations  that  the  study 
of  modern  languages  offers  wide  opportunity,  not  only  for 
the  exercise  of  verbal  memory,  but  especially  for  the  rational 
use  of  this  important  power,  by  means  of  association,  com- 
parison, discrimination.  Even  in  the  acquisition  of  the  vo- 
cabulary of  the  foreign  language,  all  these  aids  may  be  made 
use  of  by  observing  the  formation  and  derivation  of  words 
from  common  roots,  etc. ;  and  there  is  a  still  wider  use  for 
them  in  the  study  of  idioms  and  phrases,  where  the  reasoning 
power  should  always  be  appealed  to. 

Further,  in  the  study  of  authors,  the  imagination  may  be 
made  a  powerful  aid  to  memory ;  as,  for  example,  when,  with 
the  situation  and  the  characters,  their  expressions  and  conver- 
sations are  recalled.  And  while  the  introduction  of  philologi- 
cal matter  in  elementary  classes  is,  on  the  whole,  to  be 
avoided,  it  affords  not  unfrequently  a  valuable  help  to  mem. 
ory.  In  like  manner,  the  principles  of  the  historical  develop- 
ment of  language  may  be  legitimately  used  to  assist  the 
memory  and  the  understanding.  Thus,  Paul's  "Principles  of 
the  History  of  Language,"  is  full  of  suggestions  to  the  teacher. 

Methods  which,  like  Prendergast's,  or  its  more  modern 
representative,  the  Meisterschaft  System,  reduce  the  study  of 
a  language  for  many  weeks  and  months  to  the  memorizing  of 
one  hundred  words,  and  to  ringing  the  changes  on  sentences 
formed  with  this  limited  vocabulary,  leave  little  room  for  a 
rational  cultivation  of  memory.  There  need  be  very  little 
mechanical  memorizing  when  the  method  I  have  outlined  is 
followed. 


106  PRACTICAL  AND  PSYCHOLOGICAL  TESTS 

Since  literary  culture  is  one  of  the  ends  we  have  in  view, 
the  method  of  teaching  must  make  ample  provision  for  the 
cultivation  of  literary  taste.  The  literature  read  must  not 
merely  be  treated  as  a  means  of  learning  the  language,  but  it 
must  also  be  studied  from  the  aesthetic  standpoint,  and  open 
to  the  student  occasional  glimpses  into  the  field  of  comparative 
literature. 

The  study  of  the  best  literary  productions  in  a  foreign  lan- 
guage ought  also  to  lead  to  certain  ethical  results.  "  The 
literature  of  a  people  reflects  its  character,  its  manners  and 
morals,  its  history ;  to  study  the  same  means,  in  a  certain  sense, 
to  share  in  the  intellectual,  moral,  and  political  life  of  the 
nation,  which  we  esteem  the  more,  the  better  we  know  it."  88 
The  study  of  modern  languages  ought,  therefore,  to  have 
an  "  eminently  conciliatory  "  influence.  No  student  of  the 
literature  and  life  of  various  nations  can  fail  to  see  how 
generally  these  misunderstand  and  misjudge  each  other,  and 
how  true  is  the  judgment  of  an  eminent  writer  with  which  I 
will  close  :  "  The  relation  of  the  various  peoples  of  the  earth  to 
the  supreme  interests  of  life,  to  God,  virtue,  and  immortality, 
may  be  investigated  up  to  a  certain  point,  but  they  can  never 
be  compared  to  one  another  with  absolute  strictness  and  cer- 
tainty. The  more  plainly  in  these  matters  our  evidence  seems 
to  speak,  the  more  carefully  must  we  refrain  from  unqualified 
assumptions  and  rash  generalizations.  This  remark  is  espe- 
cially true  with  regard  to  our  judgment  on  questions  of  moral- 
ity. It  may  be  possible  to  indicate  many  contrasts  and  shades 
of  difference  among  different  nations,  but  to  strike  the  bal- 
ance of  the  whole  is  not  given  to  human  insight.  The  ul- 
timate truth  with  respect  to  character,  the  conscience,  and 
the  guilt  of  a  people,  remains  forever  a  secret ;  if  only  for  the 
reason  that  its  defects  have  another  side,  where  they  reappear 
as  peculiarities  or  even  as  virtues." l 


OF  MODERN    LANGUAGE   STUDY.  107 


REFERENCES. 

1.  W.  T.  Hewitt,  The  Aims  and  Methods  of  Collegiate  Instruction 
in  Modern  Languages.  (Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Associa- 
tion of  America,  vol.  i.,  p.  25,  ff.) 

2.  F.  V.  N.  Painter,  A  Modern  Classical  Course.  (Publ.  M.  L.  A., 
i.,  112.) 

3.  J.  Goebel,  German  Classics  as  a  Means  of  Education.  (Publ.  M.  L. 
A.,  i.,  156.) 

4.  H.  C.  G.  von  Jagemann,  On  the  Use  of  English  in  Teaching 
Foreign  Languages.     (Publ.  M.  L.  A.,  L,  216.) 

5.  Franklin  Carter,  The  Study  of  Modern  Languages  in  our 
Higher  Institutions.     (Publ.  M.  L.  A.,  ii.,  1.) 

6.  James  MacAllister,  The  Study  of  Modern  Literature  in  the  Edu- 
cation of  our  Time.     (Publ.  M.  L.  A.,  iii.,  8.) 

7.  James  Russell  Lowell,  Address  before  the  M.  L.  A.  (Publ. 
M.  L.  A.,  v.,  5.) 

8.  E.  S.  Joynes,  Reading  in  Modern  Language  Study.  (Publ.  M.  L. 
A.,  v.,  33.) 

9.  E.  H.  Babbitt,  How  to  Use  Modern  Languages  as  a  Means  of 
Mental  Discipline.     (Publ.  M.  L.  A.,  vi.,  52.) 

10.  W.  D.  Whitney,  Language  and  Education.  (North  Amer.  Rev., 
October.  1871.) 

li.  A.  M.  Elliott,  Modern  Languages  as  a  College  Discipline.  (Edu- 
cation, September-October,  1884.) 

12.  S.  S.  Laurie,  Lectures  on  Language  and  Linguistic  Method. 
(Cambridge,  1890.) 

13.  C.  Colbeck,  On  the  Teaching  of  Modern  Languages  in  Theory 
and  Practice.     (Cambridge,  1887. ) 

14.  A.  F.  Chamberlain,  Modern  Languages  and  Classics  in  America 
and  Europe  since  1880.     (Toronto,  1891.) 

15.  Charles  W.  Eliot,  What  is  a  Liberal  Education  ?  (Century, 
June,  1884.) 

16.  James  King  Newton,  A  Plea  for  a  Liberal  Education.  (Bal- 
timore.) 

17.  Charles  E.  Fay,  The  Preparatory  Schools  and  the  Modern  Lan- 
guage Equivalent  for  Greek.     (Baltimore.) 

18.  E.  S.  Joynes,  Position  of  the  Modern  Languages  in  the  Higher 
Education.     (Baltimore.) 

19.  Geo.  F.  Comfort,  Modern  Languages  in  Education.  (Syracuse, 
N.Y.,  1886.) 

1  Burkhardt,  "  The  Renaissance  in  Italy."  ii.,  p.  211. 


108  PRACTICAL   AND  PSYCHOLOGICAL  TESTS. 

20.  Language  Methods,  Interchange.  (Academy,  Syracuse,  November 
and  December,  1886.) 

21.  Bernhard  Schmitz,  Encyclopaedic  des  philologischen  Studiums 
der  neueren  Sprachen,  vi.,  108  ff.     (Leipzig,  1876.) 

22.  Beneke,  Erziehungs-  und  Unterrichtslehre,  ii.,  114  ff.  (Berlin, 
1864.) 

23.  Das  humanistische  Gymnasium,  Heft,  3  u.  4.     (Heidelberg,  1891.) 

24.  Literaturblatt  fur  germanische  und  romanische  Philologie.  (Jan- 
uar,  1892.) 

25.  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Ass'n  of  America,  vols,  i.-vi. 

26.  Modern  Language  Notes,  vols,  i.-vi. 

27.  Henry  Sweet,  The  Practical  Study  of  Language  (in  13th  Ad- 
dress of  the  President  of  the  English  Philological  Society,  1884.) 

28.  Dr.  Wilhelm  Schrader,  Erziehungs-  und  Unteirichtslehre  fiir 
Gymnasien  und  Realschulen,  5  Aufl.     (Berlin,  1889.) 

29.  K.  V.  Stoy,  Encyclopadie,  Methodologie  und  Literatur  der  Pada- 
gogik.     (Leipzig,  1878.) 

30.  Dr.  Herman  Schiller,  Handbuch  der  praktischen  Padagogik. 
(Leipzig,  1890.) 

31.  Dr.  Paul  Radestock,  Die  Gewohnung  und  ihre  Wichtigkeit 
fiir  die  Erziehung.     (Berlin,  1884.) 

32.  D.  C.  Gilman,  The  Idea  of  a  Liberal  Education.  (Educational 
Review,  February,  1892.) 

33.  Paul  Donau,  L'Enseignement  des  Langues  modernes.  (Bruges, 
1874.) 

34.  C.  H.  Grandgent,  The  Teaching  of  French  and  German  in  our 
Public  High  Schools.     (School  and  College,  March,  1892.) 

35.  O.  B.  Super,  The  Aim  and  Scope  of  the  Study  of  Modern  Lan- 
guages and  Methods  of  Teaching  them.  (University  Magazine,  April, 
1892.) 

36.  Calvin  Thomas,  Observations  on  Teaching  Modern  Languages. 
(Michigan  School  Moderator,  No.  218.) 

37.  Db>  Curt  Schaefer,  Der  formale  Bildungswert  des  Franzo- 
•ischen.    (Braunschweig,  1890.) 


MODERN   LANGUAGE   STUDY  IN   AMERICAN 
PUBLIC   SCHOOLS.     WHAT  NEXT?1 

BY    WILLIAM    B.    SNOW,    ENGLISH    HIGH    SCHOOL,    BOSTON. 

The  Reform  Movement  in  modern  language  teaching,  which 
may  be  regarded  as  first  acquiring  prominence  in  1882  with 
Vietor's  famous  pamphlet,  Der  Sprachunterricht  muss  umkehren, 
had  made  such  progress  in  Germany  during  the  following 
decade  that  in  1892,  at  the  Neuphilologen-Sammlung  in  Berlin, 
Professor  Watzoldt  exclaimed,  "  Die  Hauptsache  von  dem,  was 
wir  lange  gehofft  haben,  ist  jetzt  erreicht !  im  Unterrichte  ein 
Ausgehen  vom  Laut,  eine  Sicherung  der  Aussprache  zunachst 
als  erstes  Ziel,  die  Lekture  uberall  im  Mittelpunkt  als  das 
Fruchtbare,  die  Grammatik  die  Dienerin  der  Lekture,  ein 
Zuriicktreten  der  schriftlichen  Ubungen,  die  Forderung  dass 
keine  Stunde  ohne  Sprechtibung  sich  vollziehe,  eine  vielseitige 
Bewegung  des  Lektilre-Stoffs  durch  den  Lehrer,  und  zwar  in 
franzosischer  bezw.  englischer  Sprache." 

During  that  decade  not  a  word  seems  to  have  been  published 
on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  concerning  the  new  movement, 
and  Sweet  and  Widgery  are  the  only  English  authors  whose 
names  appear  in  Breymann's  Neusprachliche  Reform- Liter atur 
von  1876-1893.  In  November,  1893,  two  articles  appeared, 
one  by  Vietor,  in  the  Educational  Review,  entitled  "A  New 
Method  of  Modern  Language  Teaching,"  and  the  other  by 
Rambeau,  in  Modern  Language  Notes,  on  "  Phonetics  and  the 
Reform  Method."     In  1898  Mary  Brebner's  "  The  Method  of 

1  Paper  read  at  the  meeting  of  the  Association  of  Colleges  and  Preparatory 
Schools  of  the  Middle  States  and  Maryland,  at  Philadelphia,  Pa.,  Nov.  30t 
1912,  and  reprinted  from  the  Educational  Review. 

109 


110  MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY 

Teaching  Modern  Languages  in  Germany  "  was  brought  out  by 
The  Macmillan  Company,  in  London  and  New  York.  Still,  it 
is  probable  that,  previous  to  the  Eeport  of  the  Committee  of 
Twelve  of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  not 
one  per  cent  of  the  teachers  of  French  and  German  in  Amer- 
ican public  schools  had  ever  heard  of  the  movement.  This 
report  was  published  by  the  National  Education  Association 
in  1899,  was  printed  by  the  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Education  as  a  chapter  of  his  annual  report,  and  was  published 
in  convenient  form  and  at  a  nominal  price  by  D.  C.  Heath  and 
Company.  The  sections  on  methods  were  drafted  by  Professor 
Charles  H.  Grandgent,  and  doubtless  no  better  critical  review 
of  language  methods  has  ever  been  printed  in  an  equal  number 
of  pages.  Modern  language  teachers,  and  superintendents 
with  a  yearning  to  improve  the  teaching  of  French  and 
German,  should  read  these  sections  often  and  attentively 
before  undertaking  radical  reforms. 

Since  1900  the  terms  "  reform,"  "  phonetic,"  "  direct," 
"  natural,"  "  Heness-Sauveur,"  "  Berlitz,"  "  Gouin,"  "  psycho- 
logical," etc.,  have  hovered  over  every  modern  language  con- 
ference, sometimes  with  a  context  that  has  led  us  to  suspect 
glibness  and  superficiality  rather  than  scholarship  and  accuracy 
in  those  using  them.  Associations  like  your  own,  and  the  New 
England  Modern  Language  Association,  with  its  annual  meet- 
ing and  the  frequent  reunions  of  its  local  groups,  have  done 
faithful  and  fruitful  work. 

What  has  been  the  result  of  these  activities?  What  real 
progress  has  been  made?  To  what  should  our  immediate 
efforts  be  directed  ?  As  the  head  of  the  French  department 
in  a  large  school,  from  a  wide  and  intimate  acquaintance  with 
teachers,  and  most  of  all  from  the  saddening  knowledge  of 
how  unsatisfactory  are  the  achievements  of  pupils  in  my  own 
classes,  I  am  sometimes  ready  to  cry  out,  "  Could  anything  be 
worse!  Was  the  teaching  of  modern  languages  ever  less 
effective ! "    And  when  these  melancholy  impressions  are  con- 


IN   AMERICAN  PUBLIC   SCHOOLS.       WHAT  NEXT  ?      Ill 

trasted  with  the  roseate  descriptions  of  what  some  one  is  doing 
elsewhere  with  a  new  and  wonderful  method  that  we  are  all 
urged  to  study  and  imitate,  the  burden  seems  almost  intoler- 
able. One  thing  has  kept  me  from  being  utterly  crushed  and 
discouraged;  it  is  the  occasional  opportunity  of  testing  the 
products  of  some  much  vaunted  "system,"  and  finding  out 
how  inferior  they  commonly  are  to  what  we  ourselves  have 
thought  so  bad.  I  see  the  illegible,  misspelled  theme  of  some 
son  of  French  parents,  whose  ability  to  speak  and  understand 
has  led  me  to  put  him  into  a  third-year  class ;  or  my  ears  are 
afflicted  by  the  voluble  utterance  of  an  ill-trained  youth  whose 
freedom  from  grammatical  and  phonetic  prejudices  wins  the 
admiration  of  those  who  do  not  know  the  proper  way  to  ex- 
press what  he  is  trying  to  say;  or  I  learn  how  densely 
ignorant  of  first  principles  are  some  who  surprise  me  by  the 
number  of  pages  of  difficult  French  they  assert  they  have  read 
in  a  course  of  one  or  two  years.  So,  after  nearly  thirty  years  of 
alternating  depression  and  relief,  I  have  come  to  believe  with 
Horace,  "Nil  admirari  prope  res  sola  est"  ;  to  be  unperturbed 
by  what  Professor  Grandgenthas  called  "the  pedagogic  Grape- 
Nuts  and  Sunny  Jims  "  ;  to  realize  that  prodigies  will  bob  up 
under  any  system,  and  can  generally  attend  to  their  own 
development,  while  for  the  rank  and  file  of  our  pupils  so  little 
can  really  be  well  done,  in  the  time  at  our  disposal,  that  the 
greatest  wisdom  appears  in  resolutely  refusing  to  chase  after 
the  unattainable,  and  in  limiting  our  aims  to  what  is  possible 
and  most  essential.  I  should  define  these  aims  somewhat  as 
follows : 

1.  The  habit  of  careful,  accurate  observation  and  definite, 
connected  thinking. 

2.  Ability   to  pronounce  correctly   a  French  word   or  ex- 
pression. 

3.  Ability  to  get  the  exact  thought  of  a  French  writer. 

4.  Ability  to  understand  simple  French  distinctly  spoken. 

5.  Improvement  in  English. 


112  MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY 

6.  A  knowledge  of  French  sounds  and  how  to  make  them, 
a  vocabulary  of  common  French  expressions  closely  associated 
with  the  corresponding  thought,  and  a  feeling  for  French 
word-order,  all  of  which  together  constitute  the  necessary  and 
sufficient  foundation  for  speaking  and  writing  French  when 
the  occasion  arises. 

Have  our  high  school  teachers  generally  reached  similar 
conclusions  ?  It  is  hard  to  make  any  very  positive  statements 
from  the  data  at  our  disposal,  but  I  think  that  all  over  the 
country  the  discussions  of  the  last  ten  or  twelve  years  have 
aroused  our  teachers  to  a  new  understanding  of  what  learning 
a  modern  language  ought  to  mean,  have  wonderfully  extended 
and  strengthened  the  demand  for  attention  to  the  oral  side  of 
the  instruction,  and  have  inspired  a  fervent  desire  to  use  the 
right  method,  although  the  definitions  of  the  right  method 
present  an  almost  infinite  variety.  The  publishers  have  done  a 
mighty  work  in  supplying  texts  to  fit  all  these  definitions,  and 
their  agents  have  preached  pedagogic  gospel  even  more  widely 
than  the  teachers'  associations.  In  a  general  way  I  should 
estimate  that  a  third  of  our  schools  are  still  teaching  French 
or  German  as  those  subjects  were  usually  taught  thirty  years 
ago :  a  dose  of  grammar  administered  for  a  period  of  from  six 
months  to  a  year  without  other  distraction  than  the  Ollen- 
dorfian  sentences  of  themes  and  exercises,  pronunciation  to 
suit  individual  preferences;  next,  a  combination  of  grammar 
continued  and  French  text  unread  or  badly  read,  but  done  into 
translation-English,  the  text  showing  a  rapid  transition  from 
classic  anecdote  through  moral  tale  or  fairy  story  to  literary 
masterpiece;  lastly  an  oversetting  of  Corneille,  Racine,  or 
Moliere. 

Another  third,  perhaps,  are  varying  this  by  giving  the  text 
more  prominence,  making  a  better  choice  of  text  and  grammar 
than  would  have  been  possible  thirty  years  ago,  doing  better 
work  than  formerly  in  pronunciation,  and  making  enthusiastic 
but  ineffectual  efforts  at  conversation.     The  remaining  third 


IN   AMERICAN   PUBLIC   SCHOOLS.       WHAT  NEXT?      113 

are  doing  vigorous  work  with  many  varieties  of  "reading," 
"  reform/'  "  natural,"  or  "  psychologic  "  methods. 

Taken  "by  and  large,"  considering  time  allowed,  the  train- 
ing and  interests  of  our  pupils,  and  the  language  attainments 
most  needed  by  our  graduates,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that 
this  third  are  getting  as  good  results  as  can  be  shown  any- 
where by  as  large  a  number  of  teachers  teaching  any  subject 
by  any  method.  The  results  attained  by  a  Walter,  a  Sauveur, 
or  a  Betis,  under  favorable  conditions,  are  quite  different  from 
the  results  to  be  expected  from  an  average  American  teacher 
working  by  the  same  method  with  an  ordinary  high  school 
class.  Much  as  is  said  about  method,  I  hold  that  of  the  three 
elements:  pupil,  teacher,  method,  the  last  is  the  least  im- 
portant, and  that  a  scholarly,  vigorous  teacher,  with  a  bright 
pupil,  will  do  more  by  any  method  he  is  likely  to  follow,  than 
can  be  attained  by  an  indifferent  teacher  with  a  dull  pupil  and 
the  best  of  methods.  If  achievement  in  modern  languages 
suffers  more  reproach  and  ridicule  than  achievement  in  other 
subjects,  it  is  because  no  other  subject  of  the  curriculum  faces 
such  exacting  demands.  The  attainment  of  our  boys  is  com- 
pared directly  with  the  power  of  a  man  who  for  a  lifetime  has 
been  depending  on  French  or  German  to  express  his  thought 
and  answer  every  query.  Imagine  our  Latinist  suddenly  con- 
fronted by  Caesar  or  Virgil  with  a  request  to  be  directed  to  the 
railway  station,  or  suppose  Xenophon  should  demand  of  our 
prize  Greek  scholar  information  concerning  American  Realien ! 
Are  the  critics  of  high  school  English  —  learned  by  many  years 
of  both  direct  method  and  objective  study  —  much  less  severe 
than  the  critics  of  high  school  French?  And  what  does  the 
business  man  say  of  our  young  people's  arithmetic  ?  The  fact 
is  that  every  mature  specialist  demands  more  of  a  boy  than 
the  ordinary  boy  ever  has  possessed  or  ever  will  until  he  has 
himself  become  a  specialist.  And  the  public  school  ought  not 
to  be  a  professional  school  or  a  trade  school.  The  wise  father 
does  not  wish  his  son  to  specialize  before  the  age  of  eighteen. 


114  MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY 

This  does  not  mean  that  we  are  satisfied  with  present  con- 
ditions; it  does  mean  that  much  of  the  abuse  heaped  upon 
modern  language  instruction  is  unintelligent  and  undeserved; 
that  very  many  of  our  modern  language  teachers  to-day  are 
the  peers  of  the  best  of  their  colleagues  and  are  doing  effective, 
intelligent  work,  although  their  methods  vary  widely.  A  clear 
understanding  of  this  fact  is  the  first  essential  of  any  real 
progress.  Improvement  can  never  come  by  radical  action  on 
the  part  of  men  who  know  as  little  about  modern  languages 
and  how  they  should  be  taught  as  the  majority  of  our  critics, 
our  school  boards,  and  our  superintendents.  It  must  and  can 
come  only  through  careful  analysis  of  the  situation,  an  analysis 
made  by.  experts  with  an  intimate  knowledge  of  conditions, 
and  a  wide,  accurate  knowledge  of  what  has  been  done  —  as 
distinguished  from  what  has  been  claimed  —  elsewhere. 
Change  must  be  evolutionary  and  not  revolutionary ;  it  must 
conserve  much  that  is  good  in  our  present  work;  it  must  let 
most  of  the  teachers  we  now  have  continue  to  work  in  the  way 
and  with  the  tools  that  for  them  are  most  effective.  Goliath 
would  never  have  been  slain,  had  Saul  compelled  David  at 
once  to  take  the  king's  sword  and  leave  his  own  sling  and 
stone  in  the  camp;  although  in  later  years,  with  further 
development,  David  himself,  no  doubt,  came  to  prefer  the 
sword  and  to  wield  it  effectively.  No  method  that  has  grown 
up  and  succeeded  in  other  lands,  under  totally  different  con- 
ditions, is  likely  to  be  as  good  here,  if  suddenly  imposed  upon 
us,  as  the  practice  that  the  best  of  our  own  teachers  have 
developed  under  local  conditions.  Those  conditions  must 
change  before  any  great  changes  in  method  can  fairly  expect 
to  succeed.  No  intelligent  discussion  of  method  can  fail  to 
consider  our  possibilities  and  our  greatest  needs,  and  more  im- 
portant than  any  general  discussion  of  method,  is  the  concrete 
question  how  to  extend  our  possibilities  and  then  more  effect- 
ively meet  our  own  chief  needs. 

Compared  with  conditions  in  Germany,  we  are  tremendously 


IN   AMERICAN   PUBLIC   SCHOOLS.      WHAT   NEXT?      115 

handicapped  by  time  limitations.  Even  disregarding  the  one- 
year  course,  that  is  generally  condemned  as  an  abomination, 
and  the  two-year  courses  that  are  chiefly  confined  to  the  minor 
language  in  fitting  schools,  the  time  at  our  disposal  does  not 
exceed  five  hours  a  week  for  four  years,  and  must  usually 
be  restricted  to  four  or  five  hours  a  week  for  three  years. 
With  these  limits,  few  of  our  best  teachers  think  it  wise  to 
try  to  accomplish  more  than  has  been  already  specified,  and 
but  few  undertake  to  do  anything  worthy  of  the  name  of  con- 
versation, free  composition,  or  literary  criticism. 

Sweet  points  out  the  great  difference  between  power  of 
recognition  and  power  of  reproduction,  and  the  relatively 
long  time  required  to  develop  the  latter.  Whether  it  is  wise 
to  give  a  large  share  of  our  time  thereto,  must  depend  on  the 
relative  value  of  the  acquisition.  In  an  excellent  article  in 
the  October  number  of  the  Educational  Review,  William 
Raleigh  Price  gives  relative  values  assigned  by  the  New 
York  State  Examination  Board  as :  — 

Ability  to  read  and  understand  the  language  in  print     .  47  per  cent 

Ability  to  use  the  language  in  writing 36  per  cent 

Ability  to  understand  the  spoken  language 9  per  cent 

Ability  to  speak 8  per  cent 

For  examination  purposes,  36  per  cent  may  not  be  too  much 
to  allow  for  ability  to  write,  but  in  estimating  the  usefulness 
of  language  power  to  American  high  school  graduates,  I  should 
deduct  more  than  one-half  of  this  and  add  it  to  the  ability  to 
read,  making  the  percentages  about  70,  13,  9,  and  8.  Plainly, 
an  ideal  American  method  must  not  waste,  in  a  vain  attempt  to 
secure  the  30  per  cent  utilities,  time  which  is  necessary  and  in 
large  measure  sufficient  to  attain  the  70  per  cent  desideratum. 
Such  a  method  must  also  consider  the  pupil's  general  training, 
and  do  something  for  his  education  in  such  correlated  subjects 
as  English,  history,  geography,  economics,  art,  science,  and 
ethics.     Oral  demands  must  always  be  emphasized,  and  as  yet 


116  MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY 

they  have  been  rather  too  modest  than  too  obtrusive,  but  they 
must  not  be  regarded  as  synonymous  with  feeble  attempts  at 
inane  conversation,  and  they  must  not  be  allowed  to  over- 
shadow more  important  objects. 

Varying  types  of  schools  will  require  varying  emphasis  on 
different  phases  of  the  work.  In  a  Latin  school,  a  pupil  may 
get  excellent  instruction,  highly  effective,  because  in  harmony 
with  other  training,  from  a  class  conducted  in  large  measure 
by  a  grammatical  method ;  in  a  high  school  of  commerce,  or  a 
mechanic  arts  high  school,  a  very  different  method  would 
probably  be  preferable.  A  direct  method,  teaching  largely 
from  objects  and  pictures,  would  be  effective  with  beginners 
in  the  sixth  grade ;  a  similar  method  would  be  wasteful  and 
tedious  with  older  pupils.  The  teacher's  ability  to  do  certain 
things  well,  and  his  inability  to  do  others  successfully,  must 
likewise  receive  careful  attention  in  deciding  what  method  he 
shall  use.  It  therefore  seems  unwise  to  prescribe  one  course 
which  all  shall  follow.  Progress  will  lie  less  in  insisting  on 
any  particular  method  than  in  making  teachers  familiar  with 
the  advantages  claimed  for  various  methods,  in  having  them 
know  as  well  as  possible  the  language  they  teach,  in  deter- 
mining just  what  it  is  possible  to  do  well  in  a  given  time  with 
a  particular  class.  Having  made  this  decision,  let  each 
teacher  strive  to  attain  the  desired  results  by  whatever  method 
or  combination  of  methods  appears  most  likely  to  secure  the 
ends  in  view.  In  all  cases,  however,  the  plan  should  be  such 
that  nothing  learned,  no  habit  formed,  should  stand  in  .the 
way  of  future  progress.  If  pronunciation  is  attempted,  only 
a  good  pronunciation  should  be  tolerated;  if  conversation  is 
tried,  it  should  be  based  on  models  that  will  keep  the  pupil 
from  inventing  and  remembering  incorrect  expressions  and 
constructions ;  if  translation  into  English  is  allowed,  the  Eng- 
lish should  be  acceptable  to  the  English  department. 

Avoiding  in  this  way  the  Scylla  of  despotic  interference 
with  the  individuality  of  class  and  teacher,  we  may  shun  the 


IN    AMERICAN   PUBLIC   SCHOOLS.      WHAT   NEXT?      117 

Charybdis  of  too  lax  requirements  by  insisting  that  certain 
things  should  be  done  in  every  course  fit  to  be  offered  at  all  in 
a  high  school;  and  a  considerable  majority  of  our  best  teachers 
are  probably  seeking  to  accomplish  them  about  as  Watzoldt 
puts  it  in  the  sentence  already  quoted.  Their  method  may  be 
outlined  somewhat  as  follows :  — 

Start  with  the  sound ;  an  accurate  pronunciation  must  be 
the  first  aim,  for  the  pupil  caunot  avoid  associating  some 
sound  with  the  printed  forms,  and  if  these  associations  are 
wrong  at  first,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  correct  them  later. 
This  accuracy  may  be  obtained  with  or  without  the  help  of  a 
phonetic  text;  it  may  begin  with  letters  in  a  triangle,  with 
syllables  on  a  blackboard  or  chart,  with  short  words  introduced 
by  objects  or  by  a  simple  text.  Most  teachers  are  agreed  that 
it  is  wise  to  let  the  pupil  hear  the  sound  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  times  before  he  tries  to  make  it  himself;  that  his  care- 
ful attention  should  be  directed  to  the  position  of  the  speech 
organs  and  the  physiological  relations  of  different  sounds  ; 
that  he  should  hear  and  speak  the  sound  repeatedly  before 
he  sees  a  normal  spelling,  which,  for  a  long  time,  will  have  a 
tendency  to  mislead  him  because  of  English  sounds  associated 
with  the  letter ;  that  the  pupil  will  make  a  sound  more  con- 
fidently and  certainly  if  he  tries  it  first  in  unison  with  other 
pupils ;  that  complete  word  groups  should  be  given  very  early ; 
and  that,  from  the  time  words  are  introduced,  sound  and 
thought  should  be  closely  associated.  For  many  months,  no 
text  should  be  assigned  for  home  study  until  it  has  been  at 
least  read  aloud  by  the  teacher  and  repeated  by  the  class,  with 
continual  drill  upon  the  more  troublesome  sounds  and  word 
groups. 

Everywhere  the  reading  should  be  made  the  centre  of  the 
instruction.  This  is  the  fruitful  source  of  every  kind  of 
profitable  exercise  ;  pronunciation,  memorizing,  dictation,  copy- 
ing, paraphrasing,  reproduction,  conversation,  language  exer- 
cises of  every  kind   radiate  from  it;  to   it  we  may  look  for 


118  MODERN   LANGUAGE   STUDY 

whatever  knowledge  and  culture  language  study  can  give  us. 
How  far  the  many-sided  treatment  of  the  material  is  to  go, 
how  much  of  the  hour  can  be  given  to  oral  exercises  based  on 
the  text,  whether  this  shall  be  translated  or  read  aloud  and 
discussed  in  the  foreign  language  by  class  and  teacher,  what 
text  should  be  read  and  what  phase  of  it  emphasized,  are  ques- 
tions to  be  answered  by  each  teacher  in  the  light  of  his  own 
judgment  and  his  knowledge  of  particular  conditions;  but  the 
text  should  never  be  left  until  its  thought  is  clear,  and  this 
thought  should  be  associated  directly  and  as  permanently  as 
possible  with  the  expressions  of  the  text. 

The  grammar  should  be  the  handmaid  of  the  reading.  Gram- 
mar must  be  a  means  and  not  an  end ;  it  must  be  subordinate 
and  not  dominant;  it  should  be  brought  forward  only  as  its 
need  is  felt ;  its  function  is  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  the 
text  and  to  give  our  own  expressions  a  form  that  shall  make 
them  clear  and  pleasing  to  others. 

Whether  among  us  the  written  exercises  of  which  the  German 
reformers  complained  are  excessive  is  doubtful.  It  does  not 
seem  to  me  that,  in  most  of  the  schools  I  know,  they  are  too 
frequent,  too  long,  or  too  difficult.  It  is  true  that  several 
sentences  can  be  spoken  in  the  time  required  for  writing  one ; 
and  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  material  of  the  written  exer- 
cise should  be  thoroughly  worked  over  orally  before  the  pupil 
tries  to  write  it,  so  that  written  errors  should  be  reduced  to  a 
minimum.  When  this  is  done,  writing  is  a  most  valuable  exer- 
cise, as  nothing  else  so  effectively  fixes  expressions  exactly  and 
permanently  in  the  mind. 

To  this  outline  of  method,  I  would  add  a  word  on  the  subject 
of  promptness  and  speed  in  the  conduct  of  the  class.  Probably 
this  would  never  occur  to  a  German,  who  expects  his  pupil  to 
go  to  the  board  on  a  dog-trot,  and  could  not  conceive  the  daw- 
dling waste  of  time  permitted  in  many  American  class-rooms. 
Questions  should  be  fair,  clear,  and  definite ;  the  pupil  who  can- 
not answer  such  a  question  promptly  and  well  should  quickly 


IN   AMERICAN   PUBLIC    SCHOOLS.       WHAT  NEXT?      119 

make  way  for  one  who  can,  and  not  be  allowed  to  kill  the 
recitation  and  rob  his  fellows  of  valuable  opportunity. 

Assuming  some  such  agreement  on  what  it  is  wise  to  attempt 
under  present  conditions,  we  come  to  the  practical  question  of 
how  to  extend  the  possibilities  open  to  us  and  how  to  secure  a 
more  complete  training  for  students  of  French  and  German. 
The  "next  things"  for  the  immediate  future  comprise  the 
following  suggestions :  — 

By  eliminating  futile  attempts  to  do  the  impossible,  we  can 
concentrate  effort  on  essentials  and  better  employ  the  time  we 
now  have. 

By  continued  activity  on  the  part  of  teachers'  associations, 
we  can  endeavor  to  bring  all  schools  up  to  the  standard  already 
attained  by  the  best. 

We  can  insist  that  the  colleges  do  more  toward  giving  us 
competent  teachers.  They  can  do  more  than  they  are  do- 
ing, both  in  intensive  teaching  of  what  a  modern  language 
man  ought  to  know  of  his  subject,  and  in  providing  courses  in 
the  methods  of  teaching  foreign  languages.  It  is  true  that  they 
cannot  compel  students  to  take  these  courses  after  they  have 
offered  them,  but  as  the  demand  for  better  teachers  makes  itself 
felt,  more  students  will  feel  that  such  courses  are  worth  taking. 
And  I  am  going  to  suggest  one  thing  more  that  ought  to  be 
feasible  and  of  great  value.  Very  many  of  our  young  men  and 
women  who  take  up  teaching  cannot  afford  a  professional 
course  in  addition  to  the  regular  college  course,  and  in  the 
four  years  after  leaving  the  high  school  they  must  get  whatever 
training  they  can  hope  to  secure  before  beginning  to  teach. 
Whenever,  in  the  interest  of  such  students,  we  ask  for  more 
attention  to  the  oral  side  of  language  work  in  colleges,  we  are 
told  that  the  only  place  to  get  a  really  effective  possession  of 
a  foreign  language  is  among  the  people  who  speak  it ;  that  in 
this  respect  the  best  possible  college  courses  cannot  take  the 
place  of  residence  abroad.  And  this  is  true.  Why  not,  then, 
Jet  a  student  who  plans  to  teach  French  or  German  offer, 


120  MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY 

instead  of  four  years  in  residence,  three  years  in  residence  and 
a  year  spent  in  France  or  Germany  following  courses  approved 
by  the  college  ?  American  colleges  will  generally  allow  credit 
for  work  done  in  another  American  institution  of  good  stand- 
ing, and  in  Germany  very  many  students  spend  one  or  more 
semesters  in  universities  other  than  that  from  which  they  take 
their  degree. 

To  this  proposition  it  will  be  objected  that  American  college 
boys  are  at  an  age  when  they  need  the  oversight  and  counsel 
of  competent  college  authorities,  and  that  it  would  be  inadvis- 
able to  turn  them  loose  to  work  out  their  own  salvation  in  Paris 
or  Berlin.  This  is  also  true,  but  why  should  not  some  of  our 
colleges  combine  to  establish  in  each  of  these  cities  a  professor- 
ship, the  incumbent  of  which  should  be  a  man  familiar  with 
the  city  and  its  educational  opportunities,  wise  in  dealing  with 
young  men,  competent  to  act  as  their  adviser  and  guardian, 
vested  with  the  authority  of  the  college  over  students  who  are 
sent  to  him  ?  Five  hundred  dollars  a  year  from  each  of  ten 
American  colleges  would  maintain  such  a  professorship,  and 
the  work  which  a  foundation  of  this  kind  could  accomplish  in 
ten  years  for  the  training  of  teachers  of  French  and  German 
would  be  inestimable.  In  addition  to  his  supervising  and  ad- 
visory functions,  such  a  man  might  give  a  course  on  methods 
of  teaching  foreign  languages,  and  could  probably  get  per- 
mission for  his  students  to  see  something  of  the  teaching  of 
foreign  languages  in  French  and  German  class-rooms.  It  might 
even  be  possible  for  them  to  do  some  of  the  work  now  open  to 
lectors  and  exchange  teachers,  thus  getting  into  close  touch 
with  schools  abroad. 

Our  large  cities,  especially  those  with  wide  commercial 
relations,  ought  to  do  more  than  they  have  yet  done  to  secure 
the  best  teaching  of  languages,  and  to  give  opportunities  for 
some  pupils  to  begin  serious  study  of  a  foreign  language  in 
the  grades,  under  competent  instruction.  From  time  to  time 
this  has  been  tried,  and  it   has  failed.     The  reasons  for  the 


IN   AMERICAN   PUBLIC   SCHOOLS.       WHAT   NEXT?      121 

failure  are  not  far  to  seek.  They  are  to  be  found  in  admin- 
istrative incompetence  and  timidity.  Some  twenty  years  ago, 
Professor  Grandgent,  then  Director  of  Modern  Languages  in 
Boston,  undertook  such  an  experiment,  and  if  he  had  been 
retained  and  given  a  free  hand,  he  would  undoubtedly  have 
made  a  success  of  this  as  of  all  his  other  undertakings.  But 
when  Harvard  College  won  him  away  from  Boston,  the  posi- 
tion of  Director  of  Modern  Languages  was  abolished,  the  work 
begun  lapsed,  and  no  foreign  language  study  in  the  grades  has 
since  been  tried  there.  Many  similar  undertakings  have  had 
a  similar  end;  and  the  reform,  which  every  modern  expert 
regards  as  most  important  and  certain  to  come  in  time,  will 
never  succeed  until  some  school  board  has  the  courage  and 
intelligence  to  see  that  such  an  undertaking  demands  a  super- 
vising expert  who  knows  what  to  try  and  how  to  try  it,  what 
to  avoid  as  well  as  what  to  attempt.  Such  a  man  must  be 
elected  for  a  term  of  years  long  enough  to  enable  him  to  carry 
through  deliberately  and  carefully  a  course  of  instruction,  the 
full  results  of  which  cannot  appear  for  some  seven  years. 
He  must  have  sufficient  money  at  his  disposal  to  secure 
capable  teachers,  and  power  enough  to  put  them  where  he 
wants  them  and  keep  them  there. 

Once  let  a  city  do  this  for  ten  or  twelve  years,  and  it  will 
find  in  the  young  people  it  has  trained  an  unfailing'  supply  of 
the  sort  of  teachers  whom  it  is  now  almost  impossible  to  find, 
and  the  lack  of  whom  is  the  chief  factor  in  making  the  first 
steps  in  this  direction  so  slow,  difficult,  and  costly. 

Our  cities  must  realize,  too,  the  unusual  preparation  of  a 
well-equipped  teacher  of  modern  languages,  and  how  rare 
these  teachers  are,  even  in  our  high  schools.  When  they  get 
such  a  teacher,  they  must  recognize  her  value,  must  appreciate 
the  expense,  as  well  as  the  importance,  of  study  abroad,  must 
consider  the  nervous  and  vocal  strain  inseparable  from  success- 
ful teaching  by  a  direct  method,  and  cheerfully  grant  sabbat- 
ical years,  on   half-pay,  for  periodic  rest  and  study.      Nor 


122  MODERN  LANGUAGE  STUDY 

must  they  require  a  greater  number  of  teaching  periods  per 
week  than  it  is  possible  to  give  without  exhausting  demands 
upon  voice  and  energy. 

One  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  the  times  is  a  perception 
that  one  language  thoroughly  studied  is  worth  more,  from 
both  an  educational  and  a  business  standpoint,  than  two  lan- 
guages smattered.  The  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology now  follows  this  principle  in  the  courses  arranged  for 
its  undergraduates ;  and  Harvard  College,  in  its  new  plan  of 
admission,  makes  it  possible  for  a  man  who  has  done  intensive 
work  in  one  or  two  languages  to  enter  college  as  easily  as  the 
man  who  has  divided  the  same  time  among  three  or  four. 

My  conclusions  are  that  the  case  of  modern  languages  is 
not  as  bad  as  some  would  have  us  think ;  that  no  subject  in 
the  curriculum  has  of  late  been  getting  more  earnest  consider- 
ation from  its  teachers ;  that  our  best  teachers  are  now  using 
intelligent  methods  and  getting  results  commensurate  with 
the  time  employed  and  the  success  of  other  subjects  in  the 
same  schools.  On  the  other  hand,  in  comparison  with  what  is 
done  elsewhere  and  ought  to  be  done  here,  the  achievement  is 
insignificant.  We  must  increase  our  efforts  to  get  good  teach- 
ing in  all,  instead  of  in  a  few  schools;  we  must  have  the 
active  help  of  the  colleges  in  getting  teachers  properly  pre- 
pared ;  we  must  try  to  get  language  study  begun  aright  in  the 
grades  by  a  portion  of  the  pupils  there;  we  must  convince 
school  authorities  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  teachers 
of  a  modern  language  to  be  well  prepared,  well  paid,  and  not 
overworked. 

The  method  of  our  best  teachers  is  comparable  with  that 
suggested  twenty  years  ago  for  the  German  schools  and  now 
pretty  generally  adopted  in  Europe  ;  but  lack  of  time,  and  the 
little  actual  demand  here  for  power  to  write,  to  speak,  and  to 
understand  the  spoken  language,  has  rightly  caused  reading 
power  to  be  emphasized,  but  wrongly  led  to  undue  neglect  of 
the  oral  side  of  the  instruction.     Of  late  there  has  been  a 


IN   AMERICAN   PUBLIC   SCHOOLS.       WHAT   NEXT?      123 

vigorous  effort  to  correct  this ;  and  as  courses  are  made  longer, 
more  well-prepared  teachers  are  to  be  had,  and  the  public 
demands  better  things,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  American 
schools  will  give  the  public  all  that  the  latter  is  willing  to 
pay  for. 


AIMS  AND  METHODS  IK  MODERN  LANGUAGE 
INSTRUCTION.1 

BY   WILLIAM     R.    PRICE,    INSPECTOR    IN    MODERN    LANGUAGES, 
NEW   YORK    STATE    DEPARTMENT    OF    EDUCATION. 

It  has  frequently  been  pointed  out  that  there  are  three 
great  questions  which  every  teacher  must  ask  and  answer 
for  himself,  unless  his  thinking  is  done  for  him  by  his  supe- 
riors. They  are :  What  ?  Why  ?  How  ?  —  or,  as  Professor 
Hanus  quotes  them:  What  are  you  doing?  Why  are  you 
doing  it  ?     Why  do  you  do  it  like  that  ? 2 

In  view  of  recent  changes  in  the  Syllabus  of  modern  lan- 
guages for  the  State  of  New  York,  it  may  be  wise  to  ask  and 
answer  again  these  three  questions.  It  is  good  business 
policy  and  consequently  (at  present !)  good  educational  policy, 
to  "take  stock"  ever  so  often.  Goethe  used  to  take  an 
intellectual  inventory  about  every  five  years.  So  we  teachers 
ought  to  keep  pretty  close  track  of  our  intellectual  assets  and 
liabilities  and  productive  and  non-productive  investments,  in 
order  not  to  wake  up  some  morning  to  find  ourselves  pro- 
fessionally bankrupt. 

What  are  we  trying  to  accomplish  in  our  modern  language 
instruction  in  the  secondary  schools?  What  knowledge  or 
capacity  are  we  seeking  to  impart  ? 

There  was  a  time  when  we  thought  that  this,  the  first 
of  our  three  questions,  had  been  decided  by  the  Report  of 

1  Reprinted,  with  some  omissions,  from  the  Educational  Review. 

2  Cf.  "  Observations  upon  Method  in  the  Teaching  of  Modern  Languages," 
by  Professor  Calvin  Thomas  (one  of  the  sanest  articles  that  have  ever 
appeared,  but  rather  in  regard  to  ultimate  aims  than  to  details  of  method). 
See  also  Education  (January,  1911) :  "The  Training  of  College-bred  Teachers," 
by  Professor  Paul  H.  Hanus. 

124 


AIMS   AND   METHODS.  125 

the  Committee  of  Twelve,1  if  not  absolutely,  as  an  academic 
question,  at  least  relatively,  for  American  schools,  with  a 
well-defined  ultimate  aim :  the  culture  and  discipline  attained 
through  the  acquisition  of  a  reading  knowledge.  It  would 
seem,  however,  as  if  that  time  had  passed  beyond  recall, 
if  we  are  to  accept  at  its  face  value  the  dictum  of  the  super- 
intendent of  schools  of  the  largest  city  in  the  United  States,2 
that  "any  teaching  of  a  modern  language  which  does  not 
result  in  the  power  to  speak  the  language  is  obviously 
misdirected  teaching." 

In  the  same  Report,  Dr.  Maxwell  protested  that  the  so-called 
regents'  examinations,  by  their  emphasis  upon  translation, 
grammar,  and  compositiou,  led  to  the  neglect  of  teaching  to 
speak  the  modern  foreign  languages  and  were,  therefore,  an 
injurious  use  of  the  examination  power.  As  a  direct  or 
indirect  result  of  this  Report,  a  scheme  has  been  inaugurated 
by  the  State  Education  Department  to  remedy  this  defect, 
if  defect  it  be,  by  giving  credit  in  the  final  examinations  for 
work  in  speaking. 

From  this  it  would  seem  that  we  are  to  attempt,  in  the  future, 
to  teach  our  pupils  to  speak  the  foreign  language.  We  have 
not  done  that  in  the  past,  at  least  in  the  public  high  schools, 
first,  because  we  thought  the  aim  impossible  of  attainment, 
and  second,  because  we  thought  that  it  would  be  an  unwise 
thing  to  do,  even  if  we  could  do  it,  as  it  seemed  to  demand 
the  sacrifice  of  much  worthier  aims.  The  relative  values  of 
a  speaking  and  a  reading  knowledge  have  never  been  more 
forcibly  contrasted  than  in  the  following  paragraph,  by  one 
of  our  foremost  American  scholars :  "  For  myself,  I  can  say 
with  perfect  sincerity  that  I  look  upon  my  own  ability  to 
speak  German  simply  as  an  accomplishment  to  which  I  attach 
no  great  importance.     If  such  a  thing  were  possible,  I  would 

i  Boston:  D.  C.  Heath  &  Co.,  Revised  edition,  1914. 

2  Cf .  Tenth  Annual  Report  of  the  City  Superintendent  of  Schools,  New  York 
City,  1908,  p.  93. 


126  AIMS   AND   METHODS 

sell  it  for  money,  and  use  the  money  to  buy  German  books 
with;  and  it  would  not  take  an  exorbitant  price  to  buy  it 
either.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  what  I  have  got  from  my 
ability  to  read  German,  that  is,  my  debt  to  the  German  genius 
through  the  German  language,  I  would  no  more  part  with 
than  I  would  part  with  my  memories  of  the  past,  my  hopes 
for  the  future,  or  any  other  integral  portion  of  my  soul."1 

Is  it  possible  that  these  stirring  words  are  no  longer  true  ? 
Has  the  one-time  crushing  defeat  of  the  Sprachmeister  been 
turned  into  a  glorious  victory  ?  That  can  best  be  determined 
from  a  tabular  analysis  of  the  Report  adopted  by  the  State 
Examinations  Board,  referred  to  on  the  previous  page>  show- 
ing the  amount  of  credit  assigned  to  the  three  or  four 
"abilities"  in  modern  language  instruction. 

The  following  are  the  average  relative  values  placed  upon 
the  aims  of  modern  language  instruction :  — 

I.  Ability  to  read  and  understand  the  language  in  print    .  46f  per  cent 
II.  Ability  to  understand  the  spoken  language 9£  per  cent 

III.  Ability  to  use  the  language  orally  (i.e.,  to  speak  it)   .  .     8£  per  cent 

IV.  Ability  to  use  the  language  in  writing     35|  per  cent 

From  this  summary  it  is  evident  that  the  main  emphasis 
remains  where  it  always  has  been,  namely,  on  the  ability 
to  read  and  understand  the  written  language.  The  shifting 
of  part  of  the  emphasis  from  translation  into  English  to 
a  discussion  of  the  content  in  the  foreign  language  is  not 
a  real  departure  from  the  recommendations  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Twelve.  If  one  really  understands  a  passage  in 
the  foreign  language,  and  is  given  time  to  think  and  to 
choose  his  words,  he  can  translate  it  into  English  if  required 
to  do  so  in  an  examination.  The  main  thing  is  that  he 
understand  what  he  is  reading,  not  that  he  translate  it. 

A  word  of  explanation  might  be  made  about  the  seemingly 
low  percentage  of  credit  for  the  ability  to  understand  the 

i  See  page  27. 


IN   MODERN   LANGUAGE  INSTRUCTION.  127 

spoken  language  and  the  ability  to  use  the  language.  It 
should  be  obvious  to  any  one  that  these  two  abilities  can 
never  keep  pace  with  the  acquisition  of  linguistic  facts  and 
the  power  to  read,  understand,  and  enjoy  the  written  lan- 
guage ;  it  is  quite  similar  to  one's  ability  to  read  and  enjoy 
poetry  of  the  highest  type,  without  possessing  the  ability  to 
write  original  poetry.  It  is  the  difference  between  receptivity 
and  activity,  in  part,  and  between  reflection,  comparison, 
deduction,  as  contrasted  with  the  instantaneous  impression 
which  the  spoken  words  must  make. 

The  victory  of  the  Radicals,  then,  in  so  far  as  the  "  What  ?  " 
and  the  "  Why  ?  "  are  essentially  concerned,  is  hardly  worthy 
of  being  called  a  victory.  No  one,  least  of  all  the  authors 
of  the  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Twelve,  could  have  any  fault 
to  find  with  this  relative  valuation  of  ultimate  aims ;  on  the 
contrary,  if  I  have  read  their  Report  aright,  they  welcome 
any  scheme  of  examination  which  will  insure  better  teaching 
of  pronunciation  and  greater  familiarity  with  the  language. 

On  no  subject  of  the  curriculum  has  so  much  been  written 
about  method,  as  on  the  subject  of  modern  language  instruc- 
tion. Neglecting  what  may  be  called  devices  and  keeping 
strictly  to  the  question  of  method,  I  should  say  that  the  main 
struggle  is  between  the  use  of  the  deductive,  or  traditional 
Latin  method,  and  the  inductive  or  "  Reform  "  method,  "  made 
in  Germany."  That  is  evident  from  the  sub-title  of  Victor's 
famous  pamphlet  (Der  Sprachunterricht  muss  umkehreri),  and 
from  one  of  the  common  names  of  the  "  reform  "  or  "  direct " 
method  (analytisch-synthetisch).  This  method  really  implies  a 
knowledge  of  the  language  before  it  is  studied,  and  has  re- 
markable similarities  with  the  old  "natural"  method.  The 
vital  question,  then,  is :  Shall  this  method  be  adopted  in  our 
schools,  in  whole  or  in  part  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  answer  to  this  question  depends 
absolutely  upon  an  identity  or  similarity  of  aims,  needs,  and 


128  AIMS   AND   METHODS 

conditions  in  America  and  in  the  Fatherland.  To  argue  other- 
wise would  be  analogous  to  arguing  for  the  introduction  of  uni- 
versal military  service  in  the  United  States,  because,  forsooth, 
Germany  possesses  it. 

But  even  in  Germany  and  in  continental  Europe  the  new 
method  is  not  yet  firmly  established  on  its  throne.  Three 
recent  utterances,  representing  a  similar  or  identical  feeling, 
in  three  great  nations,  concerning  the  educational  values  of 
the  ancient  languages  as  taught  and  the  modern  languages  as 
taught  are  worthy  of  careful  consideration. 

The  first  of  these  utterances  is  the  testimony  of  the  French 
Minister  of  Education  to  the  inestimable,  indispensable,  and 
incomparable  value  of  Latin  to  all  that  constitutes  French 
genius  —  in  its  lucidity,  scope,  and  elegance.1 

The  second  is  the  voicing,  by  Mr.  William  Learned,  of  an 
opinion  frequently  heard  in  Germany,  and  familiar  to  all  read- 
ers of  the  Zeitschrift  fur  franzosischen  und  englischen  Unterricht 
(that  wholesome  corrective  to  Die  neuereri  Sprachen),  namely : 
"  It  is  still  a  matter  of  frequent  and  vigorous  discussion  whether 
the  Oberrealschule,  with  its  basis  of  modern  languages  taught 
after  this  fashion,  is,  after  all,  a  reasonable  substitute  for  the 
Gfymnasium,  with  its  more  pronounced  analytical 2  courses  in 
Latin  and  Greek,  and  a  feeling  is  expressed  among  some  of 
the  modern  language  teachers  that  a  return  to  the  old  system 
or  a  modification  of  it  may  not  be  far  distant." 8 

The  third  is  nearer  in  time,  place,  and  interest  to  us :  it  is 
the  signed  statement  of  a  very  large  number  of  professors  in 
Cornell  University,  from  all  departments  of  learning,  that  they 
prefer  students  who  have  had  the  advantage  of  a  classical  edu- 
cation (Latin  and  Greek)  to  those  who  have  elected,  in  their 

*Cf.  Educational  Review,  March,  1911:  "The  Educational  System  of 
France,"  by  Henry  A.  Perkins.    Also  School  Review,  June,  1912. 

2  The  term  is  here  applied  to  the  language  material,  with  the  same  meaning 
as  synthetic  or  deductive  when  applied  to  method.    See  page  101. 

8  Cf.  Educational  Review,  April,  1911:  "Account  of  an  Exchange  Profes- 
sorship in  a  German  Gymnasium." 


IN  MODERN  LANGUAGE   INSTRUCTION.  129 

preparatory  school,  French  and  German,  or  any  other  subjects, 
in  place  of  Latin  and  Greek. 

Need  I  remind  my  American  colleagues  in  secondary  schools, 
who  may  wish  to  introduce  the  reform  method  bodily,  of  the 
Italian  proverb :  i)hi  va  piano,  va  sano  f 

The  reform  method  in  modern  language  instruction  was  not 
recommended  by  the  Committee  of  Twelve  (although  it  does 
justice  to  it,  especially  in  its  attention  to  pronunciation),  be- 
cause its  use  in  our  schools  would  necessitate  the  postponement 
of  the  reading  of  real  literature  beyond  the  secondary  period 
and  thus  make  impossible  for  ninety  per  cent  of  our  pupils  the 
attainment  of  the  fundamental  aim  of  the  instruction,  leaving 
them,  as  Professor  Hewett  expressed  it,1  "  The  proud  possessors 
of  a  few  sentences,  but  without  any  literary  knowledge." 

To  answer  this  objection  and  obviate  this  difficulty  some  of 
the  American  "  reformers  "  have  proposed  a  compression  (not 
a  synthesis)  of  the  reform  method  and  the  reading  method,  the 
"  speaking "  to  be  a  longer  or  shorter  course  introductory  to 
the  reading.2  The  attitude  of  the  author  in  question  and  his 
critical  acumen  are  evident  in  the  introductory  paragraphs  (or 
should  I  say  Sentenzen?).     They  are  as  follows :  — 

"Language  comes  from  lingua  (tongue),  hence  language  is 
primarily  a  form  of  speech." 

"  Sprache  comes  from  sprechen,  und  eine  Sprache  ist  da,  um 
gesprochen  zu  werden." 

"  Written  language  is  merely  an  epitome  of  spoken  language. 
The  kennen  must  be  preceded  by  the  konnen." 

"  In  other  words,  speaking  is  not  an  end,  but  rather  a  means 
to  an  end." 

To  these  sophistical  apothegms  one  can  only  reply  :  Danke 
fur  die  Belehrung,  but  I  can't  follow  you ;  what  form  of  the 
syllogism  is  it  ? 

1  See  page  35. 

2  Cf.  Monatshefte  fur  deutsche  Sprache  undPadagogik,  1910,  p.  39:  "  What 
prominence  is  to  be  assigned  to  the  work  in  speaking  the  foreign  languages." 


130  AIMS    AND    METHODS 

It  seems,  however,  that  the  author  had  in  mind  the  com- 
pression into  our  short  courses  of  the  propaedeutical  part  of 
the  reform  method  and  the  reading  of  literature.  Right  here 
lies,  to  my  mind,  the  chief  danger  to  the  cause  of  modern  lan- 
guage instruction  in  America,  as  loag  as  such  instruction  is 
not  begun  before  the  secondary  period.  In  Germany  this  plan 
could  be  expected  to  work  very  well,  because  the  language  is 
begun  early  enough  and  continued  long  enough  to  enable  the 
pupils  to  get  a  fair  mastery  of  the  Umgangssprache  before  tak- 
ing up  the  study  of  the  literature.  Our  courses,  however,  are 
not  long  enough  for  that,  and  they  will  not  be  of  sufficient 
length  until  the  foreign  languages  shall  dip  down  two  or  three 
years  into  the  grades.  If  we,  therefore,  under  present  condi- 
tions, try  to  attain  these  two  aims,  we  shall  be  in  the  position 
of  the  man  who  tries  to  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone  and 
misses  both,  or  of  him  who  tries  to  occupy  two  chairs  and  sits 
down  hard  between  them. 

I  doubt  whether  many  high  school  teachers  of  the  State 
really  know  what  they  are  talking  about  in  all  this  fuss  about 
the  direct  method.  It  has  become  a  word  to  conjure  with 
—  an  "  open  sesame  "  to  all  the  treasures  of  the  foreign  lan- 
guage and  literature.  They  speak  of  it  with  a  respect  verging 
on  reverence.  They  will  tell  you  that  they  are  using  it  in 
their  classes,  perhaps  that  they  introduced  it  into  their  school, 
or  that  they  were  pioneers  in  its  American  exploitation. 
They  recount  before  their  admiring  fellow-teachers  how  they 
teach  from  pictures  the  life  of  St.  Hieronymus1  or  draw  a 
moral  lesson  from  the  picture  of  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Sebas- 
tian, or  teach  the  Umgangssprache  by  pantomime,  etc.,  etc.  In 
one  class  I  found  a  lot  of  overgrown  boys  and  girls  engaged, 
under  expert  direction,  in  the  highly  practical  and  educational 
diversion  of  counting  their  fingers  in  German,  .after  having  dis- 
covered and  formulated,  by  the  inductive  method,  the  reasons 

1  This  was  actually  proposed  recently  before  a  large  body  of  modern  lan- 
guage teachers. 


IN  MODERN   LANGUAGE   INSTRUCTION.  131 

for  their  names  and  the  laws  governing  their  relative  posi- 
tions; and  it  didn't  even  have  the  justification  of  being  a 
Mother  Goose  rhyme :  — 

11  Dies  ist  der  Daumen, 
Der  schiittelt  die  Pflaumen,"  etc. 

Granting  that  the  direct  method  accomplishes  all  that  its 
enthusiastic  advocates  claim  for  it  in  continental  Europe  (and 
that  is  not  by  any  means  proven),1  there  is  no  real  analogy  be- 
tween modern  language  instruction  in  an  Oberrealschule  or  in 
the  Francfort  Musterschule,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  American 
high  school  on  the  other,  either  (1)  in  the  scholarship  and  ped- 
agogic technique  of  the  teachers,  or  (2)  in  the  dimensions  of 
the  courses,  or  (3)  in  the  character  of  the  pupils  and  their  atti- 
tude towards  their  work,  or  (4)  in  the  actual  practical  and 
educational  needs  of  the  pupils.  While  the  burden  of  proof 
would  naturally  rest  upon  those  who  claim  the  existence  of 
such  analogy,  I  shall  nevertheless  give  here  some  references 
and  arguments  to  refute  such  claims.2 

!Cf.  School  Review,  February,  1911 :  "  Visit  to  the  Francfort  Musterschule," 
by  Mr.  Charles  Goettsch.  —  After  stressing  the  purely  mechanical  feature 
of  endless  repetition  necessary  to  produce  automatic  reaction  in  speaking  the 
language,  the  author  states  that  the  pupils  who  finish  the  course  would  be- 
come good  conversationalists  "  if  they  spent  a  year  in  France  or  England  !  " 
Cf.  also  Revue  universitaire,  15  mai,  1910  :  "Rapport  sur  la  troisieme  colo- 
nie  francaise  de  vacances  en  Allemagne  (1909)  par  M.  A.  Pinloche,  professeur 
au  Lyce'e  Michelet,"  from  which  the  following  is  quoted  (p.  429)  :  "Mais  je 
suis  bien  oblige  de  signaler  de  nouveau  aux  families  et  a  nos  collegues  francais 
le  point  faible  de  la  plupart  de  nos  colonistes  (je  ne  parle  ici  que  des  jeunes 
gens) :  c'est  leur  preparation  insuffisante  en  allemand,  qui  rend  la  tache  de 
leurs  professeurs  de  vacances  singulierement  difficile  et  ingrate,  et  en  mime 
temps  leur  sejour  moins  profitable  qu'il  pourrait  et  devrait  l'etre.  '  To  us 
font  preuve'  nous  dit  M.  Hammelrat,  'd'un  manque  de  surete  regrettable 
dans  les  applications  pratique  de  la  grammaire  allemande  et  d'une  ignorance 
surprenante  du  vocabulaire  de  la  vie  quotidienne.'  " 

2Cf.  the  1911  Year-Book  of  the  National  Education  Association.  "Liter- 
ary appreciation  in  the  study  of  foreign  languages :  its  opportunities  and  lim- 
itations, with  special  reference  to  the  study  of  French,"  by  M.  Albert  Leon 
Guerard,  Assistant  Professor  of  French,  Leland  Stanford  Jr.  University: 
"We  should  recognize  that,  while  America  needs  at  least  as  much  foreign 
language  study  as  any  European  nation,  it  does  not  need  the  same  kind.  .  .  . 


132  AIMS   AND  METHODS 

Mr.  John  Franklin  Brown,  in  his  impressions  of  the  Ger- 
man system  of  training  teachers,1  after  emphasizing  the  scope 
and  thoroughness  of  the  general  academic  and  university  and 
pedagogical  training  of  prospective  teachers,  voices  his  con- 
viction that  scholarship  is  the  most  important  single  factor 
in  the  excellence  of  German  schools ;  and  he  drives  home  his 
point  by  illustrations  taken  from  the  equipment  of  the  modern 
language  teacher.  What  analogy  is  there  between  such  a 
preparation,  uniform  for  all  teachers,  and  that  of  the  three 
score  and  ten  odd  types  of  modern  language  teachers  in  Amer- 
ica, from  the  selbst-importierter  Sprachmeister  who  failed  in  his 
Staatsexamen  in  Germany,  to  the  sweet"  girl  graduate  who 
"  specialized  "  in  French  in  college  ? 

What  analogy  is  there  between  a  course  of  six  or  nine  years 
and  one  of  two,  three,  or  four  ? 

What  analogy  is  there  between  the  type  of  pupil  in  Ger- 
many, for  whom  a  Fleissfehler  or  a  Betragensfehler  is  an  acute 
shame  and  disgrace,  and  the  type  of  pupil  in  America,  who,  if 
menaced  with  such  a  punishment,  would  most  probably  cry 
out,  " Make  it  fifty,  Professor  \n  —  Or  between  a  school  sys- 
tem where  all  economic  pressure  tends  to  keep  a  boy  in  school, 
where  success  or  failure  means  success  or  failure  for  life,  honor 
in  the  Fatherland  or  emigration  to  America!  and  one  where 

There  a  practical  study  of  our  neighbors'  language,  as  it  is  spoken,  is  at  the 
same  time  almost  indispensable  and  comparatively  easy.  One  can  hardly 
move  from  one's  native  village  without  coming  across  some  international 
boundary.  Any  Parisian  teacher,  any  ambitious  young  clerk,  any  small 
business  man,  can  easily  spend  a  fortnight's  holiday  in  London ;  it  is  only  a 
matter  of  seven  hours  and  five  dollars.  ...  On  the  other  hand,  America 
needs  the  influence  of  European  thought  and  culture  just  because  she  has  no 
immediate  neighbor  from  whom  she  has  much  to  learn.  Thus  isolated  from 
the  original  home  of  the  race,  America  would  run  a  great  risk  of  becoming 
provincial  —  for  a  province  may  be  as  large  as  a  continent.  Our  duty  as 
teachers  of  languages  and  literatures  is  to  open  as  direct  an  avenue  as  possi- 
ble between  European  thought  and  the  American  public ;  and  I  do  not  believe 
that  Berlitz  French  is  the  straightest  and  widest  avenue  that  could  thus  be 
opened.  My  contention  is  this  ...  let  us  teacb  French  mainly  for  reading 
purposes." 

*Cf.  School  Review,  1910. 


IN  MODERN  LANGUAGE  INSTRUCTION.  133 

all  economic  pressure  tends  to  force  the  boy  out  of  school  at 
the  age  of  fourteen  or  sixteen?  Furthermore,  the  policy  in 
the  Musterschule  (and  doubtless  in  other  schools  in  Germany) 
is  to  have  the  same  modern  language  teacher  carry  a  class  all 
the  way  through  the  course;  compare  that  with  our  classes, 
which  shrink  so  every  term  that  three  or  four  have  to  be  com- 
bined into  one.  In  a  large  New  York  City  high  school  there 
are  about  twelve  hundred  pupils  taking  German ;  about  eight 
hundred  of  them  are  in  the  first  year  of  instruction  ! 

Finally,  the  European  boy  or  girl  begins  the  study  of  a 
modern  foreign  language  much  earlier  than  do  our  pupils,  and 
the  method  which  is  best  suited  psychologically,  not  to  speak 
of  other  reasons,  to  them,  is  not  by  any  means  best  suited  to 
our  pupils.  For  one  thing,  what  is  interesting  and  amusing  at 
the  age  of  nine  or  ten  is  apt  to  be  considered  childish  and 
geisttotend  at  twelve  or  fourteen. 

If  this  is  so,  and  who  will  deny  it  ?  what  question  can  there 
be  of  the  introduction  of  the  direct  method  into  our  schools  ? 
In  my  opinion,  none  whatever. 

What  change  in  method,  then,  does  the  Resolution  of  the 
State  Examinations  Board  contemplate  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  will  be  evident  to  any  one  who 
has  seen  much  of  the  teaching  of  modern  languages  in  the 
schools  of  the  State.  The  usual  type  of  recitation  is  summed 
up  by  the  formula :  "  Jack  read ;  John  translate ;  Mary  ex- 
plain the  syntax  of.  .  .  .  "  Very  often  the  foreign  language 
is  not  even  read ;  and  if  it  is,  no  attention  is  paid  to  vowel- 
quantity,  accentuation,  intonation  and  expression,  proper 
grouping  of  words ;  on  the  contrary,  the  reading  is  as  crude 
and  painful  as  pulling  teeth.  Very  frequently  the  teacher 
has  had  but  two  or  three  courses  in  grammar  and  translation 
in  college  and  is  utterly  incompetent  to  do  more  than  to  con- 
duct a  translation  exercise.  It  is  to  remedy  such  glaring  de- 
fects that  the  Resolution  was  passed ;  it  is  hoped  that  it  will 
awaken  school  authorities  to  the  necessity  of  getting  ade- 


134  AIMS   AND   METHODS 

quately  prepared  teachers  for  the  foreign  languages  and  send 
inadequately  prepared  teachers  scurrying  to  summer  schools 
and  to  Europe  to  perfect  themselves  in  the  foreign  languages. 
Viewed  from  this  standpoint,  no  legislation  of  the  State  De- 
partment in  recent  years  is  so  important  and  far-reaching  in 
potential  results. 

The  hardest  thing  to  get  teachers  to  realize  is  this :  that  no 
extra  time  is  necessary  for  the  kind  of  work  contemplated  by 
the  changes  in  the  Syllabus.  Most  teachers  look  upon  the 
oral  work  as  something  on  the  side,  something  extraneous. 
They  think  of  the  German  language,  for  example,  as  composed 
of  air-tight  compartments :  pronunciation  and  reading  is  one ; 
translation  is  another;  grammar,  another;  conversation,  an- 
other. So  they  have  separate  days  for  these  phases  of  work, 
as  though  they  were  unrelated.  They  compare  the  oral  work 
to  the  laboratory  work  in  the  sciences:  two  periods  of  labo- 
ratory work  equal  one  period  of  recitation  on  the  text-book, 
therefore  two  periods  of  conversation  should  be  provided  by 
lopping  off  from  the  other  work.  The  result  is  that  the  pupil 
fails  to  see  the  relation  between  grammar,  reading,  conversa- 
tion, translation ;  it  is  often  as  though  he  were  studying,  under 
these  names,  unrelated  subjects. 

It  is  right  here  that  the  wisdom  of  the  Report  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Twelve  is  most  apparent:  the  reading  should  be  the 
centre  of  the  instruction,  it  says;  and  this  truth  cannot  too 
often  be  driven  home  to  teachers.  Not  until  they  look  upon 
the  reading  (which  does  not  at  all  mean  of  necessity  transla- 
tion) as  the  hub  of  the  modern  language  wheel,  on  which  all 
phases  of  linguistic  work  converge  like  the  actual  spokes  of 
an  actual  wheel,  will  they  have  the  proper  perspective  in  their 
teaching. 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  scope  and  general  character  of  the 
reading  material  should  be  changed,  although  the  first  reader 
may  well  partake  of  the  nature  of  the  German  reform  readers. 
I  believe  that  we  can  accomplish  just  as  much  in  the  future 


IN   MODERN   LANGUAGE   INSTRUCTION.  135 

as  we  have  in  the  past,  and  in  addition  to  that,  I  believe  that 
we  can  make  a  lot  of  the  French  and  German  pass  over  from 
the  passive,  receptive  stage  into  the  active  stage.  To  accom- 
plish this,  three  things  should  be  required  of  pupils  in  the 
preparation  of  every  reading  lesson :  (1)  they  should  read  the 
French  or  German  aloud;  (2)  they  should  translate  it  into 
English,  as  a  home  task ;  (3)  they  should  prepare  the  French 
or  German  text  so  as  to  be  able  to  answer  in  French  or  Ger- 
man any  questions  in  French  or  German  on  the  content  and 
form  of  the  assigned  reading. 

To  make  the  conversation  centre  in  and  revolve  about  the 
texts  read  has  three  great  advantages :  — 

First:  There  is  the  essential  element  of  reality  about  such 
conversation,  so  utterly  lacking  when  teachers  and  pupils  try 
to  converse  about  pictures  and  topics  for  which  they  have  not 
learned  an  adequate  vocabulary.  It  is  true  that  special  books 
have  been  written  for  this  purpose,  but  they  are  generally 
either  puerile  or  wooden  or  both. 

Second :  It  does  not  necessitate  the  cutting  down  of  the 
amount  or  general  character  of  the  reading,  as  some  teachers 
have  proposed,1  but  increases  the  amount  of  possible  reading, 
because  (a)  it  makes  pupils  learn  the  French  or  German  in 
addition  to  the  translation,  thus  gradually  doing  away  with  a 
lot  of  useless  thumbing  of  the  dictionary,  and  (b)  by  taking 
the  place  of  much  useless  class-room  translation  it  saves  time 
for  sight  reading  (which  should  not  be  confused  with  sight 
translation).  In  addition  it  does  away  with  the  use  of 
"ponies"  and  interlineation  of  books  with  English  words, 
because  the  pupil  must  show  (a)  by  his  reading,  and  (6)  by 
his  answers  in  the  foreign  language  that  he  understands  what 
he  has  prepared  at  home. 

Third:  It  enables  the  teacher  who  is  not  "to  the  manner 
born "  to  conduct  every  reading  lesson  in  French  or  German, 
for  any  teacher  who  has  a  good  pronunciation  and  a  good 
1  Cf.  Article  by  W.  Betz,  School  Review,  June,  1911. 


136  AIMS   AND   METHODS 

knowledge  of  the  grammar  can  formulate  simple  questions 
on  the  form  and  content  of  the  reading  lesson.  If  need  be 
she  can  write  them  out  at  home  and  memorize  them.  Such 
a  teacher  is  likely  to  formulate  questions-with-a-purpose, 
rather  than  to  use  aimless  conversational  phrases  about 
trivial  things.  I  have  seen  excellent  recitations  conducted 
in  this  way,  with  a  lot  of  lebendige  Grammatik,  by  teachers 
who  had  no  real  independent  speaking-knowledge  of  the 
language  taught. 

The  psychological  and  logical  reasons  for  a  lot  of  oral 
work  such  as  is  here  proposed  are  not  far  to  seek.  Certain 
things  in  a  foreign  language  simply  have  to  be  learned 
by  heart  and  retained.  Association  from  all  sensory- 
motor  vantage  points  is  more  effective  in  this  memoriz- 
ing and  retention  than  from  one  alone.1  Some  sounds 
will  necessarily  be  associated  with  words ;  let  them  be, 
therefore,  the  correct  ones.  That  means  very  thorough  drill 
in  pronunciation  and  practice  in  reading  aloud,  extending 
over  the  entire  course. 

Literature,  especially  poetry,  loses  much  if  read  silently 
or  if  read  aloud  poorly ;  there  can  be  no  real  appreciation  of 
French  or  German  poetry  except  through  proper  oral  reading. 
That  is  just  why  foreigners  fail  to  appreciate  French  poetry, 
for  example. 

Grammar  is  always  more  or  less  meaningless  until  it  has 
been  exemplified  in  actual  use  so  often  that  the  correct  usage 
becomes  automatic.  This  intimate  relation  of  grammar  and 
reading  cannot  well  be  established  by  aimless  conversation. 
It  is  for  that  reason  that  I  value  chiefly  oral  work  based  upon 
the  reading  text. 

With  the  plan  of  work  here  proposed  it  will  not  be  neces- 
sary to  sacrifice  one  whit  of  the  discipline  and  culture  which 

1  Cf.  School  Review,  1909:  "  The  Phonetic  Method,"  hy  Professor  A.  Gideon 
(an  excellent  short  account,  showing  clearly  what  features  of  this  method 
are  of  value  in  our  practice,  and  why) . 


IN  MODERN  LANGUAGE   INSTRUCTION.  137 

we  have  set  up  as  the  ultimate  aim  of  modern  language  in- 
struction ;  on  the  contrary,  I  feel  confident  that  we  shall  better 
attain  our  aim,  while,  in  addition,  we  shall  be  laying  a  founda- 
tion in  speaking  on  which  the  few,  who  may  continue  their 
studies  abroad  or  in  our  colleges,  can  readily  build. 


THE   TEACHING   OF   FRENCH   AND   GERMAN   IN 
OUR   PUBLIC   HIGH   SCHOOLS.1 

BY  PROFESSOR   C.   H.    GRANDGENT,  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY,   WHEN 
DIRECTOR  OF  MODERN  LANGUAGES  IN  THE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS. 

By  "our"  schools  I  mean  those  of  Massachusetts;  and 
when  I  say  "high  schools,"  I  am  thinking  especially  of  insti- 
tutions that  are  not  engaged  in  preparing  pupils  for  college 
entrance  examinations.  Let  us  take  it  for  granted,  further, 
that  a  foreign  language  occupies,  in  the  average  high  school 
course,  some  three  hours  a  week  for  three  years.  It  is  obvious 
enough  that  we  cannot  do  everything  in  this  time :  we  are 
obliged  to  devote  ourselves  particularly  to  some  one  part  of 
the  subject,  and  our  choice  must  be  determined,  in  the  first 
place,  by  our  possibilities,  and,  next,  by  the  purpose  we  have 
in  mind.  My  intention  is  to  examine  briefly  the  five  chief 
branches  of  modern  language  study,  with  a  view  to  ascertain- 
ing which  of  them  we  can  teach,  and  which  of  these  latter  we 
can  most  profitably  pursue.  I  shall  consider  the  five  topics 
in  the  following  order :  speaking,  writing,  grammar,  transla- 
tion, reading. 

First  comes  speaking.  I  am  often  asked  :  "  Can  we  teach 
pupils  to  talk  French  and  German  ?  "  Let  us  see.  We  know 
that  the  ability  to  use  a  language  for  the  purpose  of  commu- 
nicating ideas  can  be  gained  only  through  long-continued 
practice.     The  ear,  the  vocal  organs,  the  memory,  the  reason- 

1  Read  at  meeting  of  Massachusetts  Association  of  Classical  and  High  School 
Teachers,  December,  1891.  Reprinted  from  School  and  College,  with  the  permission 
of  the  publishers. 


THE  TEACHING  OP  FRENCH  AND  GERMAN.  139 

ing  powers,  the  will,  must  all  receive  a  special  and  thorough 
training.  Hearing  others  speak  will  not  do :  we  must  speak 
ourselves.  This  is  a  case,  if  there  ever  was  one,  where  the 
motto  fit  fabricando  faber  exactly  hits  the  nail  on  the  head. 
Now  let  us  suppose  that  a  class  of  twenty-five  pupils,  neglect- 
ing all  else,  spends  its  whole  time  in  "  conversation  ;  "  let  us 
say  that  each  recitation  period  consists  of  fifty  minutes,  and 
that  the  class  recites  three  times  a  week ;  let  us  suppose,  also, 
for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  that  the  instructor  talks  only 
half  of  the  time.  What  is  the  result?  If  the  hours  are 
equitably  divided,  every  pupil  speaks  for  three  minutes  a 
week,  or  two  hours  yearly,  or  a  quarter  of  a  day  during  his 
entire  public  school  career.  When  we  reflect  that  it  takes  us, 
with  fully  an  hour's  exercise  per  diem,  ten  or  fifteen  years  to 
master  our  native  tongue,  we  can  perhaps  estimate  the  amount 
of  skill  that  is  to  be  produced  by  six-hours'  practice  scattered 
over  a  term  of  three  years.  It  will  then  be  unnecessary  to 
discuss  the  question  whether  or  not  the  ability  to  speak 
French  or  German  is  a  desirable  and  proper  object  for  a  pub- 
lic school  course.  By  all  this  I  do  not,  in  the  least,  intend  to 
discourage  the  use  of  a  foreign  language  in  the  class-room : 
my  only  purpose  is  to  show  that  we  cannot  make  speaking 
our  chief  aim,  and  that  we  must  accept  this  fact  once  for 
all,  and  shape  our  methods  accordingly.  If,  however,  so- 
called  "  conversation  "  ought  not  to  be  regarded  as  an  end  in 
itself,  it  is  certainly  a  most  valuable  auxiliary.  There  are  at 
least  four  reasons  why  we  should  cultivate  it:  in  the  first 
place,  it  satisfies  a  frequently  expressed  desire  on  the  part  of 
the  public,  and  as  the  public  supports  the  schools,  its  wishes 
should  be  heeded ;  secondly,  classes  do  not  correctly  appre- 
ciate what  they  read  (especially  if  their  text  is  either  metrical 
in  form  or  colloquial  in  style)  unless  they  know  how  it  sounds  ; 
thirdly,  the  actual  use  of  the  foreign  tongue  invariably  inter- 
ests the  pupils,  giving  them  a  sense  of  mastery  that  nothing 
else  can  bring ;  and,  lastly,  exercises  of  this  kind  stimulate 


140    THE  TEACHING  OP  FRENCH  AND  GERMAN 

the  teacher  to  more  extended  study  and  greater  mental  actir- 
ity.  I  should  say,  therefore,  to  those  instructors  who  have  a 
practical  command  of  the  language  they  teach,  "  Use  it  as 
much  as  possible  in  school,  but  do  not  waste  time  on  it.  If 
you  have  something  to  tell  the  class,  say  it  in  the  foreign 
tongue  whenever  you  think  you  will  be  understood  without 
long  explanation  or  tiresome  repetitions.  Encourage  the 
scholars  to  express  themselves  in  the  same  language  as  soon 
and  as  often  as  they  can.  Always,  and  particularly  at  the 
outset,  insist  on  the  best  pronunciation  attainable.  Begin,  as 
a  rule,  with  simple  and  not  too  numerous  French  or  German 
sentences  containing  no  new  words,  and  decrease,  month  by 
month,  the  proportion  of  English  spoken.  You  will  find  that 
during  the  last  year  the  greater  part  of  your  instruction  can 
be  imparted  in  the  language  you  are  studying."  Teachers 
who  cannot  speak  German  or  French  I  should  earnestly  advise 
to  learn  to  do  so  as  quickly  as  possible,  but  not  to  experiment 
on  the  class  until  they  have  acquired  a  fair  degree  of  fluency 
and  correctness. 

We  now  come  to  our  second  subject,  writing.  It  might 
naturally  occur  to  us  that  if  we  devoted  most  of  our  energies 
to  composition,  we  could,  perhaps,  give  our  scholars  a  kind  of 
training  admirably  adapted  to  the  development  of  their  reas- 
oning faculties,  and,  at  the  same  time,  fix  in  their  minds  the 
most  important  facts  of  the  language.  Of  course,  however, 
we  do  not  wish  to  make  writing  our  specialty  unless  we  can 
teach  pupils  to  write  well ;  otherwise  we  shall  have  too  little 
to  show  for  our  three-years'  labor.  Now,  before  students  can 
learn  to  write  properly,  they  must  have  collected  the  materials : 
they  should  have  read  a  large  amount  of  French  or  German, 
and  they  must  have  gained  a  clear  and  complete  knowledge  of 
the  necessary  points  of  grammar.  The  former  of  these  re- 
quirements is  often  neglected  by  teachers,  but  it  is,  in  my 
opinion,  the  more  important  of  the  two.  All  our  talking  and 
writing  of  foreign  tongues,  so  far  as  it  is  correct,  is  almost 


IN  OUR  PUBLIC   HIGH  SCHOOLS.  141 

wholly  a  matter  of  imitation:  we  are  never  sure  that  any 
expression  we  may  wish  to  use  is  right,  unless  we  have  seen 
or  heard  it  before  ;  and  generally  we  must  meet  with  a  word 
or  phrase  many  times,  and  examine  it  from  several  points  of 
view,  before  we  feel  that  we  are  on  speaking  terms  with  it. 
I  think  it  would  be  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  if  *we  spent 
all  our  three  years  on  translation  and  grammar,  our  best 
pupils  would,  at  the  end  of  that  time,  be  just  in  proper  condi- 
tion to  begin  serious  work  in  composition.  Writing  must, 
therefore,  like  speaking,  be  considered,  in  our  high  school 
course,  as  a  side  issue.  It  is,  nevertheless,  an  indispensable 
Auxiliary  to  grammar  study,  and,  if  intelligently  conducted,  a 
wonderful  aid  to  reading  and  translation. 

At  first  sight  it  would  seem  that  grammar,  our  third  topic, 
might  well  be  made  the  principal  theme  of  our  modern  lan- 
guage curriculum.  If  carefully  pursued  throughout  the  course, 
with  enough  reading  and  writing  to  illustrate  its  principles,  it 
would  furnish  a  good  instrument  for  training  the  intelligence, 
and  provide  a  subject  that  ought  to  be  thoroughly  learned,  by 
diligent  and  fairly  able  scholars,  in  three  years.  "  By  dili- 
gent and  fairly  able  scholars  "  —  alas  !  this  qualifying  phrase 
opens  our  eyes  to  a  weakness  in  the  argument.  For  it  is  a 
fact,  shown  not  by  ratiocination,  but  by  experience,  that  our 
pupils,  when  obliged  to  study  grammar,  are  neither  "diligent " 
nor  "  fairly  able " :  they  are,  generally  speaking,  stupid  and 
indolent  beyond  all  endurance.  Why  ?  Simply  because  they 
dislike  it.  However  pleasing  grammar  may  appear  to  the 
philologist,  who  sees  it  in  perspective,  the  schoolboy,  for 
whom  it  is  merely  a  collection  of  paradigms,  formulas,  and 
exceptions,  finds  it  intolerably  dry  ;  and  the  schoolboy  cannot 
do  his  best  work  unless  he  is  interested.  Here  and  there  an 
instructor  may  exist  sufficiently  enthusiastic  and  discriminat- 
ing to  make  the  subject  attractive  ;  but  I  fear  that  most  of 
our  teachers  are  scarcely  more  fond  of  the  science,  for  its  own 
sake,  than  are  the  pupils  themselves.    Yet  we  must  have 


142    THE  TEACHING  OF  FRENCH  AND  GERMAN 

some  grammar ;  else  we  can  expect  no  accurate  knowledge  of 
the  language.  There  seems  to  be  but  one  way  out  of  the 
dilemma :  to  teach  only  the  essentials ;  to  administer  this 
necessary  amount  in  small  and  well-graded  doses,  alternating 
with  lessons  of  a  different  character;  and  to  emphasize  its 
utility  and  relieve  its  dulness  by  means  of  close  association 
with  interesting  composition  work  and  agreeable  reading 
matter. 

Translation  and  reading,  as  I  use  the  terms,  are  not  quite  the 
same  thing.  The  chief  objects  of  the  former  are  mental  disci- 
pline and  training  in  English ;  the  main  purpose  of  the  latter 
is  general  culture,  to  be  attained  through  the  intelligent  peru- 
sal of  the  greatest  possible  number  of  good  foreign  books. 
Yet  the  two  cannot  be  entirely  separated :  reading  must  begin 
by  translation;  and  it  is  equally  true  that  the  thoughtful 
translation  of  literary  masterpieces  cannot  fail  to  refine  the 
taste.  In  either  case  we  must  be  sure  to  select  works  that  are 
excellent  in  themselves,  and  can  be  readily  appreciated  by  the 
scholars ;  we  should  study  with  the  same  care  the  differences 
of  idiom  between  the  two  languages ;  and,  whatever  may  be 
our  aim,  we  ought  never  to  be  satisfied  with  inaccurate  or 
awkward  English  versions.  In  these  respects  the  two  methods 
are  identical.  It  is,  in  fact,  rather  two  ideals  that  we  have  to 
distinguish.  We  may,  on  the  one  hand,  direct  all  our  labors 
toward  the  development  of  the  reason ;  in  this  case  we  shall 
have  a  course  consisting  of  carefully  corrected  translation,  a 
maximum  of  grammar  and  composition,  and  comparatively 
little  speaking.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  end  we  have  in 
view  is  the  broadening  of  the  mind  and  the  cultivation  of  the 
taste,  we  shall  have,  perhaps,  more  translation  and  conversa- 
tion and  somewhat  less  writing  and  grammar;  and  we  shall 
strive  to  train  our  pupils  in  such  a  manner  that  they  can,  be- 
fore the  end  of  the  three  years,  absorb  thought  directly  through 
the  foreign  medium,  without  the  interposition  of  English. 
Both  of  these  objects  —  mental  discipline  and  general  culture 


IN  OUR  PUBLIC   HIGH   SCHOOLS.  143 

—  are  so  desirable  that  no  complete  course  can  wholly  neglect 
either  of  them ;  and  if  lack  of  time  compels  us  partially  to 
sacrifice  one  to  the  other,  we  may  not  find  the  choice  easy. 
The  following  considerations  seem  to  me  to  be  of  weight.  In 
our  public  schools  most  of  the  work  appears  to  be  calculated 
to  fit  young  persons  rather  to  meet  the  rude  exigencies  of  life 
than  to  enjoy  its  good  things  :  this  is  doubtless  right ;  but  the 
strictly  practical  side  of  education  is  not  the  only  one  that 
deserves  attention.  When  foreigners  criticise  us  Americans, 
they  say  we  are  intelligent,  quick,  inventive,  but  lacking  in 
refinement  and  artistic  taste ;  and  I  think  there  is  much  truth 
in  their  judgment.  Now,  refinement  and  taste  are  necessary 
factors  of  civilization :  we  cannot  afford  to  pass  by  any  oppor- 
tunity to  cultivate  them ;  and  how  can  they  be  more  readily 
developed  than  by  the  study  of  literature  ?  We  already  have 
a  somewhat  meagre  course  of  reading  in  English ;  but  this, 
even  if  it  were  far  more  extended,  could  never  be  half  so  effect- 
ive in  overthrowing  prejudices,  suggesting  ideas,  opening  new 
vistas,  and  forming  correct  standards,  as  is  the  intercourse 
with  great  minds  of  other  countries.  I  am,  therefore,  inclined 
to  say  that  a  French  or  German  course  does  not  fulfil  its  true 
mission  until  it  affords  pupils  at  least  an  introduction  to  the 
best  literature  of  the  language  they  are  learning. 


STATEMENT  OF  CHAIRMAN  OF  THE  COMMITTEE 
ON  MODERN  LANGUAGES,  NATIONAL  EDUCA- 
TION ASSOCIATION.1 

ABSTRACT 

Service  to  the  pupil  determines  the  aims  of  instruction. 
Work  must  at  all  times  be  of  value  both  to  those  "who  are 
to  leave  the  class  and  to  those  who  will  continue  in  it.  The 
aims  of  the  first  year  are  phonetic  training,  knowledge  of  the 
fundamental  principles  of  language,  and  interest  in  the  foreign 
nation  whose  language  is  studied.  Pupils  with  neither  taste 
nor  capacity  for  studying  a  foreign  language  should  drop  it 
after  the  first  year.  Oral  work  and  accurate  pronunciation 
should  from  the  beginning  receive  the  most  careful  attention. 
The  method  used  depends  somewhat  on  the  equipment  of  the 
teacher,  but  it  should  train  ear,  eye,  tongue,  and  hand. 

The  first  texts  should  be  of  the  simplest  kind  and  should 
arouse  an  interest  in  the  life  of  the  foreign  people.  The  work 
may  include  copying  text,  with  minor  variations  of  person, 
number,  tense,  etc. ;  writing  from  dictation ;  reading  aloud ; 
translation,  oral  and  written,  both  from  and  into  the  foreign 
language ;  reproduction ;  paraphrasing ;  imitative  and  free  com- 
position. Texts  should  be  modern  in  style,  not  too  long,  dis- 
tinctively national  in  character,  adapted  to  the  age,  sex,  and 
thought  of  the  pupil,  and  they  should  give  something  worth 
remembering.  Grammar  should  be  the  handmaid  of  the  text, 
which  should  be  the  centre  of  all  instruction.  In  translation, 
thought  should  intervene  between  the  two  languages,  being 
derived  from  the  first  and  expressed  by  the  second. 

1  A  report  made  at  the  annual  meeting  in  July,  1914. 
144 


STATEMENT   OF   CHAIRMAN.  145 

In  proportion  to  the  time  allowed,  modern  language  instruc- 
tion in  our  best  schools  is  as  good  as  that  abroad,  but  we  need 
more  good  teachers  and  an  opportunity  for  selected  pupils  to 
begin  the  study  of  a  foreign  language,  under  competent  instruc- 
tion, in  the  grades.  The  colleges  should  give  especial  attention 
to  preparing  teachers  of  modern  languages,  and  the  cities  should 
grant  Sabbatical  years  with  half  pay  to  teachers  who  will  go 
to  the  expense  of  study  abroad. 

I.    AIMS. 

Service  to  the  pupil  is  the  great  object  of  the  work  of  this 
committee.  In  accordance  therewith,  valid  aims  are  defined 
as  those  which  seek  to  meet  the  needs  of  real  pupils,  as  we 
actually  find  them,  and  a  satisfactory  method  must  give  such 
pupils,  in  proper  sequence  and  quantity,  what  they  need  to 
receive.  We  must  so  arrange  the  work  that  at  every  point  it 
may  be  profitable  for  those  taking  it,  giving  to  all  a  general 
appreciation  of  the  subject,  attaining  for  all  who  continue  the 
language  beyond  the  introductory  stage  satisfactory  power  in 
certain  particulars,  and  securing  a  useful  degree  of  skill  for 
those  by  ovhom  such  skill  may  be  needed.  The  first  work 
should  be  so  chosen  that  those  who  drop  the  subject  early 
shall  retain  something  of  value  for  themselves  while  impeding 
as  little  as  possible  the  progress  of  others  who  are  laying  the 
foundation  for  future  study,  and  a  determining  factor  in 
deciding  the  order  of  procedure  should  be  the  principle  that 
the  work  that  makes  for  skill  not  generally  needed  and  diffi- 
cult of  attainment  should  be  reserved  for  later  study  and  for 
especially  gifted  pupils. 

Certain  features  of  modern  language  work  may  be  eliminated 
at  once  from  the  list  of  reasonable  aims  for  the  pupil  who 
expects  to  drop  his  language  study  early,  either  because  he 
must  leave  school  or  because  his  individual  powers  or  lack  of 
power  make  it  advantageous  for  him  to  use  his  time  in  other 


146  STATEMENT   OF   CHAIRMAN 

ways.  Such  a  pupil  can  expect  neither  to  read  nor  to  speak 
the  language;  a  mere  parrot-like  knowledge  that  a  German 
calls  "  die  Tiir,"  and  a  Frenchman  "  la  porte,"  a  thing  known 
to  the  pupil  as  "the  door,"  is  likely  to  be  soon  forgotten  and 
to  have  no  value  either  "  practical "  or  educational.  He  can- 
not hope  to  gain  either  skill  or  /power  in  most  phases  of  the 
subject,  and  for  him  we  must  choose  work  in  which  the  field  is 
so  restricted  that  diligent  study  for  even  a  short  time  may 
secure  some  satisfactory  achievement,  and  in  which  the  train- 
ing received  will  extend  to  other  interests  and  develop  the 
child  along  linjes  not  directly  connected  with  the  language 
itself.  Yet  this  work  must  also  be  profitable  for  those  who 
expect  to  go  farther,  and  must  therefore  be  a  good  foundation 
for  future  advanced  work. 

Three  aims  of  modern  language  instruction  seem  to  meet 
perfectly  these  requirements,  which  at  first  appear  so  hard  to 
reconcile.     They  are : 

(1)  To  secure  a  reasonable  degree  of  phonetic  accuracy  and 
lead  the  pupil  to  feel  its  importance. 

For  the  child,  speech  has  been  a  more  or  less  unconscious 
process.  With  the  study  of  a  foreign  language  he  should  dis- 
cover the  necessity  of  making  sounds  and  their  formation  the 
object  of  careful  attention.  He  should  gain  thereby  a  conscious 
control  of  his  speech  organs ;  should  develop  his  power  to  use 
them  as  he  wills;  should  learn  to  feel  the  significance  of 
sound  distinctions,  and  to  enunciate  clearly  whenever  he 
speaks.  The  slovenly  mumbling  that  so  often  passes  for 
English  speech  sufficiently  emphasizes  the  need  of  this. 

(2)  To  teach  precision  in  the  use  of  words  and  to  give  a 
clear  understanding  of  grammatical  relations  and  of  the  com- 
mon terms  which  state  them,  showing  why  such  terms  are 
necessary. 

The  child's  own  language  has  been  so  much  a  part  of  his 
very  being  that  it  is  extremely  difficult  for  him  to  look  upon  it 
as  a  proper  object  of  study.     The  normal  child  feels  competent, 


OF   THE  COMMITTEE  ON   MODERN   LANGUAGES.       147 

without  any  rules,  to  speak  in  a  perfectly  satisfactory  way. 
And  if  well  born  and  reared  he  ought  to  be.  To  learn  to  em- 
ploy the  terms  of  grammar  seems  to  him  a  most  unnecessary 
and  foolish  thing.  After  reading  or  hearing  that  John  struck 
James,  he  gains  no  further  information  by  being  told  that 
John  is  the  subject  of  the  sentence;  and  he  cannot  conceive 
of  any  human  being  so  stupid  that  he  must  be  told  that  John 
is  the  subject,  before  knowing  which  boy  struck  the  other. 
When  he  knows  offhand  how  words  go  together,  why  should  he 
learn  strange,  odd-sounding  terms  to  explain  relations  which  to 
him  need  no  explanation?  That  is  the  puzzling  mystery 
which  very  often  befogs  the  boy  who  "  can't  understand  gram- 
mar." He  is  confused  by  the  attempt  to  explain  to  him  by 
mysterious  vocables  what  seems  perfectly  clear  without  any 
explanation.  In  the  case  of  a  foreign  language,  the  child 
comes  easily  to  see  the  need  and  the  use  of  grammar,  if  from 
the  beginning  it  is  made,  what  it  should  be,  the  handmaid  of 
the  text. 

Vagueness  of  the  thought  associated  with  a  word  is  even 
more  common  than  faulty  enunciation.  The  study  of  the 
foreign  language  shows  the  importance  of  knowing  the  exact 
meaning  of  words  and  of  using  them  with  care. 

(3)  To  stimulate  the  pupil's  interest  in  the  foreign  nation, 
leading  him  to  perceive  that  the  strange  sounds  are  but  new 
ways  of  communicating  thoughts  quite  like  his  own ;  showing 
him  by  the  close  resemblances  in  words  and  viewpoints  that 
the  German  and  the  Frenchman  are  his  kinsmen,  with  in- 
terests, ambitions,  and  hopes  like  his  own ;  revealing  to  him 
that  their  tales  can  give  him  pleasure,  their  wisdom  can  en- 
lighten him. 

For  every  sort  of  pupil  this  work  can  be  made  profitable, 
and  in  most  cases  entertaining.  Affording  an  excellent  founda- 
tion for  future  study,  it  is  valuable  alike  for  the  pupil  who 
drops  out  early  in  the  course  and  for  him  who  is  to  make  a 
specialty  of  language  work.     These  aims,  moreover,  do  not 


148  STATEMENT   OF  CHAIRMAN 

imply  the  completion  of  any  definite  amount  of  work  before 
the  child  can  profit  by  what  he  learns,  nor  do  they  require  the 
application  of  any  particular  method.  While  keeping  them 
constantly  in  mind,  we  may  stress  the  substantive  with  the 
"natural"  and  the  "picture  and  object"  schools,  or  we  may 
attack  the  verb  first  with  the  followers  of  Gouin  and  the  "  psy- 
chological "  method.  The  same  ends  may  be  sought  with  a 
class  that  can  rapidly  acquire  a  large  vocabulary  and  attain  a 
considerable  command  of  inflectional  forms  and  with  a  class  of 
immature  beginners  whose  progress  must  be  slow.  The  closest 
application  to  these  aims  is  compatible  with  a  very  great 
variety  in  details  of  method. 

The  end  of  the  first  year  should  be  marked  by  the  elimina- 
tion of  those  who  are  unprepared  to  continue  modern  language 
study  in  a  somewhat  serious  and  determined  way.  The  most 
moderate  achievement  in  learning  a  foreign  language  implies 
persistent  application  to  tasks  not  wholly  pleasant,  alertness  of 
mind  and  retentiveness  of  memory,  the  building  of  a  unified 
structure,  each  part  of  which  must  rest  on  previous  work  well 
done.  In  a  modern  language  such  achievement  must  include 
at  least  the  power  to  read  an  ordinary  book  rapidly,  intelli- 
gently, and  without  too  frequent  recourse  to  the  dictionary. 
Attainment  short  of  this  is  practically  useless,  and  the  pupil 
who  is  not  to  reach  this  stage  had  better  drop  his  French  or 
German  at  the  end  of  the  first  year  and  use  his  time  for  other 
things.  In  a  well-rounded  course,  satisfactory  achievement 
should  include  also  the  ability  to  understand  the  foreign  lan- 
guage, when  spoken  distinctly,  and  the  ability  to  express  simple 
thought  orally  or  in  writing.  In  general,  after  the  preliminary 
year,  two  years  of  further  study  will  be  needed  for  acceptable 
results. 

In  his  fourth  year  of  study,  the  high  school  pupil  is  mature 
enough  and  should  have  had  experience  enough  in  dealing  with 
abstract  notions  to  profit  by  a  somewhat  careful  consideration 
of  the  fundamental  principles  of  grammar  and  composition,  as 


OF  THE   COMMITTEE  ON  MODERN  LANGUAGES.      149 

illustrated  in  both  the  foreign  language  and  his  own.  Atten- 
tion may  be  called  to  the  literary  quality  of  the  texts  read,  and 
the  development  of  an  appreciation  of  good  literature  and  of 
a  taste  therefor  is  a  proper  aim  of  general  value. 

The  texts  of  the  fourth  year  may  be  chosen  to  give  particu- 
lar power  in  the  rapid  reading  of  special  material:  commercial 
texts  and  business  correspondence  for  the  pupil  who  expects 
to  enter  commercial  life ;  scientific  French  or  German  for  him 
who  expects  to  go  to  a  technical  school.  In  general,  however, 
the  work  will  be  merely  a  continuation  and  extension  of  that  of 
the  preceding  two  years,  introducing  more  difficult  texts  and 
more  rapid  reading;  adopting  a  more  scholarly  and  critical 
attitude  toward  questions  of  grammar  and  style ;  making  the 
foreign  language  largely,  perhaps  almost  entirely,  the  language 
of  the  class  ;  demanding  more  initiative  and  a  larger  independ- 
ence on  the  part  of  the  pupil,  yet  being  ever  mindful  of 
Goethe's  line,  "  Bedenkt  ihr  habet  weiches  Holz  zu  spalten." 

In  seeking  to  attain  the  special  ends  for  which  any  subject 
is  peculiarly  well  adapted,  the  real  teacher  will  ever  bear  in 
mind  those  general  aims  that  are  indispensable  in  all  teaching 
that  is  worthy  to  be  called  education.  Habits  of  industry, 
concentration,  accurate  observation,  intelligent  discrimination, 
systematic  arrangement  and  presentation,  careful  memorizing, 
independent  thinking,  so  far  outweigh  the  advantages  gained 
merely  by  knowing  something  about  a  particular  topic  that 
they  are  perhaps  too  generally  assumed  to  be  universal,  and, 
like  the  air  we  breathe  or  the  water  we  drink,  are  sometimes 
forgotten  or  neglected.  The  personality  of  the  teacher  and 
the  manner  in  which  he  works,  rather  than  the  subject  he 
teaches  or  the  method  he  uses,  will  make  for  those  elements 
which,  after  all,  are  the  great  objects  of  secondary  education, 
the  business  of  which  is  indeed  to  impart  knowledge  that  is 
likely  to  be  useful,  but  far  more  to  develop  in  the  child  those 
tastes,  powers,  and  habits  that  fit  for  happy,  efficient  living. 


150  STATEMENT   OF   CHAIRMAN 


II.     METHOD. 

Only  one  reasonable  explanation  can  be  given  for  the  per- 
sistency of  the  conflict  among  different  methods  of  teaching 
foreign  languages.  It  is  that  each  method  which  has  won  any 
considerable  favor  has  in  it  elements  of  good,  and  has  secured 
results  which  seemed  desirable  to  those  who  used  the  method; 
indeed,  we  may  perhaps  go  farther  and  say  that  the  worst  of  a 
dozen  methods,  employed  by  a  strong  teacher  with  underlying 
purpose  well  in  mind,  will  give  a  more  valuable  training  and 
better  results  than  any  method  when  employed  by  an  inferior 
teacher.  It  is  probable,  too,  that  one  method  is  better  than 
another  for  doing  some  things,  but  less  effective  in  securing  a 
different  end  or  ends,  so  that  the  aim  which  seems  most  im- 
portant will  determine  the  method  to  use  in  a  particular  case. 
Doubtless,  too,  the  equipment  of  certain  teachers  makes  it 
possible  for  them  to  work  best  with  a  method  which  a  different 
teacher  would  not  wisely  choose.  Instead,  then,  of  trying  to 
lay  out  in  detail  the  "  best  method,"  we  should  consider  various 
methods  that  have  been  found  good,  endeavor  to  see  wherein 
their  merit  lies,  and  to  decide  what  method  seems  especially 
well  suited  to  various  conditions  and  to  different  types  of 
classes  or  teachers.  In  the  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Twelve 
of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America  (D.  C.  Heath 
&  Co.),  Section  III,  entitled  "  A  critical  review  of  methods  of 
teaching,"  has  well  outlined  the  chief  methods  and  their  char- 
acteristic features ;  and  we  shall  assume  that  the  reader  is 
familiar  with  that  report,  which  has  been  the  guide  and  stand- 
ard of  modern  language  instruction  in  the  United  States.  It 
is  thought,  however,  that  improved  conditions  make  it  now 
possible  to  take  a  somewhat  more  advanced  position  than  was 
advisable  in  1898. 

Methods  may  be  classified  as  "  direct,"  which  seek  to  elim- 
inate the  mother  tongue,  endeavoring  from  the  beginning  to 
associate  directly  the  thought  and  the  foreign  expression;  and 


OF  THE  COMMITTEE   ON  MODERN  LANGUAGES.      151 

"  indirect,"  that  base  their  work  on  the  child's  knowledge  of 
his  own  language  and  depend  largely  on  preliminary  gram- 
matical instruction,  translation,  and  explanation  in  the  vernac- 
ular. Few  advocates  of  direct  methods  are  now  so  extreme  as 
to  reject  all  use  of  the  mother  tongue;  nor  would  any  good 
teacher  who  uses  in  general  an  indirect  method  fail  to  employ 
many  devices  for  getting  direct  association  of  thought  and  the 
foreign  speech.  The  grammatical  and  the  reading  methods 
may  be  called  indirect ;  the  phonetic,  which  has  grown  into 
the  "new"  or  "reform"  (often  now  spoken  of  as  "the  direct" 
method),  the  Gouin  or  psychological,  and  the  natural,  Heness- 
Sauveur  or  Berlitz  methods,  may  be  called  direct.  A  hard  and 
fast  line  could  scarcely  be  drawn,  however.  Some  teachers 
who  begin  with  a  grammatical  or  a  reading  method  use  the 
foreign  language  largely  in  their  later  work,  while  many  of 
the  best  exponents  of  the  reform  or  of  the  Gouin  methods  do 
not  hesitate  to  employ  the  mother  tongue  freely  at  first  in 
stimulating  the  pupil  to  the  thought  desired. 

As  aims  suitable  for  the  first  year,  we  have  mentioned 
phonetic  accuracy,  grammatical  comprehension,  and  interest 
in  the  foreign  nation.  To  secure  the  first,  a  very  large  amount 
of  oral  drill  is  essential.  It  is  necessary,  moreover,  that  this 
drill  aim  at  accuracy  and  not  at  the  slipshod  approximations 
that  make  the  results  of  some  attempts  to  use  a  direct  method 
as  unsatisfactory  from  a  phonetic  as  from  a  grammatical  stand- 
point. As  pupils  grow  older  and  their  imitative  faculties 
become  less  acute,  more  attention  must  be  given  to  the  vocal 
organs  and  to  the  theory  of  sound  formation ;  the  relations  of 
sounds  and  the  distinctions  between  them  must  be  more  care- 
fully explained,  and  a  larger  amount  of  phonetic  drill  is 
required.  Neglect  of  this  is  fatal.  The  unfortunates  who  are 
allowed  to  become  fluent  in  ill-pronounced  French  or  German 
never  recover;  their  sound  perceptions  are  blurred,  instead  of 
being  educated;  the  only  compensation  is  that  they  themselves 
are  mercifully  unconscious  of  the  suffering  which  their  vocal 


152  STATEMENT   OF   CHAIRMAN 

atrocities  inflict  upon  others.  The  man  trained  by  the  gram- 
matical method  usually  knows  that  he  cannot  pronounce,  and 
so  does  not  attempt  it ;  the  badly  trained  victim  of  a  superficial 
conversational  method  flays  complacently  the  unhappy  lan- 
guage. A  teacher  who  cannot  pronounce  well,  but  is,  unfortu- 
nately, compelled  to  teach,  does  less  harm,  therefore,  by 
omitting  pronunciation  as  completely  as  possible  than  by 
teaching  a  pronunciation  that  is  a  bad  habit  likely  to  persist. 
Good  teaching,  however,  implies  a  well-equipped  teacher,  and 
a  good  pronunciation  is  fundamental. 

The  care  with  which  pronunciation  is  taught  should  extend 
to  the  English  as  well  as  to  the  French  or  German;  the  im- 
mediate result  of  the  work  will  be  well-spoken  French  or 
German,  but  the  educational  value  in  a  wider  sense  should  be 
an  appreciation  of  the  beauty  of  clearly  enunciated,  distinct 
speech  in  general,  the  habit  of  noticing  sounds  and  inflections, 
and  a  desire  to  speak  well. 

For  teaching  pronunciation,  some  prefer  phonetic  texts,  but 
a  majority  of  our  best  teachers  do  not  feel  this  to  be  necessary. 
Some  would  use  them  for  French,  but  not  for  German  or 
Spanish.  Nothing  like  a  course  in  phonetics  should  be  at- 
tempted in  teaching  a  foreign  language  in  a  high  school,  but, 
where  mere  imitation  fails,  a  teacher  with  phonetic  training 
can  at  times  give  briefly  helpful  directions  for  making  certain 
sounds  and  for  appreciating  sound  distinctions.  There  should 
be  much  distinct  speaking  by  the  teacher  ;  repetition  in  unison 
and  singly  by  the  pupils  ;  unwearying  drill  until  the  sounds 
are  right  and  the  swing  of  the  word  group  well  imitated. 
Most  important  are  the  vowels ;  consonants  are  more  easily 
acquired.  Separate  sounds,  syllables,  words,  and  phrases  must 
all  be  practised.  In  time  the  foreign  idiom  should  become  the 
usual  language  of  the  class,  and  even  seem  a  natural  means  of 
communication  between  teacher  and  pupil  outside  the  class. 

With  the  aim  of  accurate  pronunciation  always  in  mind,  the 
particular    material    treated   is   relatively   unimportant.     As 


OF  THE  COMMITTEE   ON   MODERN  LANGUAGES.      153 

speedily  and  completely  as  possible,  thought  and  sound  should 
be  directly  joined,  but  whether  the  stimulus  to  the  thought 
should  be  primarily  an  object,  a  gesture,  a  picture,  or  a  book, 
is  a  question  that  may  well  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  the 
teacher.  The  best  practice  is  probably  to  employ,  as  far  as 
time  allows,  every  available  means,  separately  and  in  combina- 
tion, to  impress  permanently  and  together  thought  and  sound, 
written  sign  and  muscular  movement.  Ear  and  eye,  tongue 
and  hand,  should  be  in  constant  interaction  with  the  busy 
brain,  each  exciting  and  aiding  the  others.  Undoubtedly  a 
normal  spelling  makes  for  a  wrong  pronunciation  no  less  in  the 
foreign  language  than  in  our  own,  but  until  men  adopt  every- 
where a  phonetic  alphabet  and  spelling  we  shall  be  obliged  to 
associate  words  as  sounded  with  their  signs  as  normally  printed 
or  written,  and  it  is  a  fair  question  when  this  association  should 
begin .  In  teaching  a  foreign  language,  the  sound  should  cer- 
tainly come  first ;  it  should  be  practised  and  repeated  in  con- 
nection with  the  thought  until  it  is  likely  to  be  remembered, 
and  then  only  is  it  safe  to  associate  the  word  with  the  conven- 
tional spelling. 

Whatever  be  the  method  employed,  grammatical  compre- 
hension is  demanded  as  soon  as  the  words  are  grouped  so  as  to 
express  real  thought.  Fundamental  concepts  of  action  and 
actor,  subject  and  object  of  a  verb,  adjectival  and  adverbial 
modifiers,  the  connectives  of  speech,  various  modes  and  times 
of  action,  etc.,  must  be  brought  out  with  a  clearness  that  in  a 
child's  mind  is  often  absent,  dormant,  or  vague  in  connection 
with  the  mother  tongue.  That  inflectional  forms  are  often 
necessary  to  express  these  varying  concepts  is  not  infrequently 
a  discovery  for  the  pupil,  and  the  fact  should  give  the  concepts 
greater  definiteness  and  importance  in  his  mind.  In  the  real 
education  of  the  boy,  clarifying  and  classifying  these  concepts 
and  getting  him  to  regard  language  objectively  and  to  appre- 
ciate to  some  extent  its  mechanism,  is  far  more  important  than 
the  mere  acquisition  of  a  foreign  tongue.     So  from  the  begin- 


154  STATEMENT   OF   CHAIRMAN 

ning,  sentence  structure  should  be  so  presented  that  the  ele- 
ments of  the  word  group  stand  out  in  their  proper  relations, 
and  that  the  inflectional  forms  carry  with  them  a  comprehen- 
sion of  those  relations.  Whatever  be  the  method,  the  word 
groups  presented  should  be  simple  enough  to  insure  correct 
understanding  of  grammatical  relations  (syntax),  progress 
should  be  sufficiently  slow  for  the  pupil  to  fix  one  form  before 
others  are  introduced,  and  abundant  swift  illustrations,  chiefly 
oral,  each  as  short  as  possible,  should  spike  together  correct 
pronunciation  and  correct  feeling  for  inflectional  forms.  Here, 
too,  effective  work  must  at  the  same  time  build  a  firm  founda 
tion  for  the  new  language  and  develop  an  appreciation  of  gen 
eral  speech-truths  that  will  make  the  course  profitable  for  him 
who  drops  out  of  the  class  as  well  as  for  him  who  continues 
therein.  In  arithmetic  abstruse  problems  have  no  proper  place 
with  beginners ;  so,  in  language  study,  simple  sentences  with 
limited  vocabulary  and  frequent  repetitions  should  furnish  the 
material  for  the  first  year.  Long,  complicated  sentences,  like 
puzzle  problems,  are  an  entertaining  and  perhaps  profitable 
exercise  for  those  who  have  a  taste  for  them ;  but  it  is  certain 
that  we  rarely  have  to  deal  with  such  problems,  and,  if  a  pupil 
is  not  naturally  clever  in  solving  them,  forcing  him  to  attempt 
them  involves  a  most  unprofitable  expenditure  of  time  and 
energy. 

Among  general  truths  of  language,  the  importance  of  word 
order  and  the  great  significance  of  the  pause,  with  its  effect  on 
what  immediately  precedes  or  follows,  need  to  be  especially 
studied  by  the  pupil  and  in  some  cases,  perhaps,  pondered  long 
and  carefully  by  the  teacher. 

III.     MATERIAL. 

There  exists  a  very  wide  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  choice 
of  material  to  be  used  with  beginners.  Aside  from  classes  that 
for  the  first  year  study  the  grammar  only  —  may  their  number 
ever  grow  less  —  the  texts  used  may  be  roughly  classified  as: 


OF   THE   COMMITTEE   ON  MODERN  LANGUAGES.      155 

(1)  Conversation  manuals,  based  on  daily  life,  foreign  travel, 
etc. 

(2)  Selections  from  historical  or  scientific  readings,  regarded 
as  having  intrinsic  value. 

(3)  Fiction,  fairy  tales,  etc.,  regarded  as  having  little  in- 
trinsic value,  but  suited  to  interest  and  attract  the  pupil. 

(4)  Texts  of  literary  reputation,  as  Teleinaque. 

However  varying  tastes  and  circumstances  may  influence  the 
decision  among  these  groups,  it  is  reasonable  to  assume  that 
the  nation  whose  history,  literature,  or  commercial  importance 
nakes  its  language  worth  studying  should  have  elements  of 
jiterest  for  every  intelligent  person,  and  that  arousing  this 
interest  must  play  an  important  part  both  in  opening  a  field  of 
wholesome  enjoyment  and  in  stimulating  a  desire  to  continue 
the  subject  gladly  and  diligently.  Since  beginners  cannot  be 
expected  to  have  enough  comprehension  of  a  new  language  to 
appreciate  literary  style,  and  since  high  school  freshmen  ought 
not  to  have  had  experiences  that  fit  them  really  to  feel  great 
literature,  most  texts  of  literary  reputation  should  be  absolutely 
eliminated  from  first-year  work.  In  choosing  from  the  other 
three  groups,  phonetic  and  grammatical  ends  seem  to  be  as 
well  served  by  one  as  by  another.  The  choice  may  therefore 
depend  on  our  third  aim  —  arousing  an  interest  in  the  foreign 
nation.  For  this  aim,  scientific  reading  must  be  of  the  sim- 
plest type,  dealing  with  such  topics  as  the  geography  or  the 
inventions  of  the  nation ;  historical  selections  must  be  equally 
simple  and  should  deal  with  the  popular  features  of  the  nation's 
history ;  and  with  most  pupils  this  material  can  be  used  only 
sparingly  without  loss  of  interest.  Some  pupils  look  with 
scorn  upon  the  fairy  tale  as  beneath  their  dignity.  This  atti- 
tude is  often  merely  a  pose,  and  the  folk  tale  especially  has 
qualities  of  human  interest  that,  when  set  off  by  local  color, 
rarely  fail  to  attract  old  as  well  as  young  readers.  Fiction  ex- 
clusively, however,  is  apt  to  create  an  impression  that  the  work 
is  not  of  a  serious  nature. 


156  STATEMENT   OF   CHAIRMAN 

There  remains  the  field  of  realien,  real  things  about  the  actual 
life  of  the  people,  and  it  is  probably  wise  to  draw  upon  this 
source  for  most  of  the  material  for  the  first  year,  as  it  combines 
the  advantages  of  general  interest  with  a  feeling  that  what  is 
read  is  of  a  real  and  substantial  nature.  An  ideal  text  for  the 
first  year  might  then  be  described  as  one  that,  constantly  em- 
ploying the  simplest  expressions  and  constructions,  gives  at- 
tractive glimpses  of  the  common  life  and  scenes  in  the  foreign 
land,  with  bits  of  its  history,  natural  features,  inventions,  and 
folklore.  The  "guidebook"  type  must,  however,  be  avoided 
as  uninteresting  to  the  large  number  of  our  pupils  who  expect 
never  to  travel  abroad. 

IV.     DBTAILS    OP   PROCEDURE. 

Having  agreed  that  our  first  aims  should  be  phonetic  train- 
ing, grammatical  comprehension,  and  interest  in  the  foreign 
nation,  and  that  our  text  should  treat  largely  of  the  life  of  the 
people  and  be  of  the  simplest  type,  we  come  next  to  the  ques- 
tion of  details  in  the  treatment  of  this  material.  Experience 
indicates  that  in  this  respect  no  universal  agreement  can  be 
secured,  but  certain  general  principles  of  procedure  may 
be  suggested  and  certain  dangers  of  common  practice  may  be 
pointed  out. 

First,  the  time  devoted  at  the  beginning  to  learning  accu- 
rately the  sounds  of  the  new  language  is  usually  quite  insuf- 
ficient. It  would  be  advantageous  if  an  arrangement  could  be 
made  by  which  for  several  weeks  no  home  study  would  be  as- 
signed in  a  foreign  language,  allowing  teachers  of  other  subjects 
to  utilize  that  time  in  exchange  for  class-room  time.  In  this 
way  all  work  done  in  the  new  language  might  be  done  in  class 
and  under  the  direction  of  the  teacher.  If  home  lessons  must 
be  assigned  during  those  first  few  weeks,  they  should  be  such 
as  to  involve  the  least  possible  danger  of  fixing  wrong  speech 
habits.  The  use  of  phonetic  script  probably  makes  it  possible 
to  assign  home  work  with  less  danger  of  associating  wrong 


OP  THE   COMMITTEE  ON  MODERN   LANGUAGES.       157 

sounds  with  the  normal  spelling.  If  it  is  not  thought  wise  to 
use  the  phonetic  script,  keep  the  vocabulary  small,  repeat  the 
same  words  again  and  again  with  all  the  variety  of  simple,  real 
uses  that  the  ingenuity  of  the  teacher  can  discover ;  let  home 
work  include  nothing  that  has  not  been  exhaustively  worked 
over  in  class.  Much  copying  of  text  and  writing  out  at  home 
the  most  useful  inflections  of  a  very  large  number  of  words  will 
fill  up  the  time  out  of  class  that  some  teachers  feel  obliged  to 
demand  lest  pupils  get  at  first  the  unfortunate  impression  that 
the  new  study  is  a  "  cinch."  This  copying  of  text,  varied  as 
soon  as  possible  by  changes  of  person,  number,  tense,  etc.,  is  a 
good  introduction  to  the  writing  from  dictation  which  should 
be  soon  begun  and  diligently  practised. 

Many  fierce  battles  have  been  waged  over  the  question  of 
translation.  It  is  probable  that  translation  cannot  possibly  be 
avoided  in  the  earlier  stages  of  study.  A  child  cannot  see  a 
familiar  object  without  having  the  name  by  which  he  has  known 
it  flash  instantly  into  his  mind.  A  thought  is  bound  to  seek 
expression  in  the  language  with  which  similar  thoughts  have 
been  most  closely  associated,  and,  once  formulated  in  this  lan- 
guage, subsequent  expressions  of  that  thought  will  be  more  or 
less  a  translation.  As  it  is  always  best  to  face  facts  as  they 
are  and  to  reckon  with  them,  no  matter  how  displeasing  they 
may  be,  the  wise  procedure  here  is  probably  to  attack  transla- 
tion early  and  try  to  teach  pupils  how  a  translation  ought  to 
be  made,  passing  from  one  language  to  thought,  and  from  the 
thought  to  its  expression  in  the  second  language.  Left  to 
himself,  a  pupil  will  certainly  translate,  and  he  is  equally 
certain  to  do  it  wrongly,  substituting  English  words  for  those 
of  the  text,  and  then  guessing  the  meaning  from  the  English 
(?)  result.  The  two  languages  are  the  two  slices  of  bread  in 
a  linguistic  sandwich,  and  they  should  always  be  separated 
by  a  filling  of  meaty  thought,  so  that  the  words  of  each  lan- 
guage are  in  direct  contact  with  the  thought  and  not  with  each 
other.     This  insistence  on  joining  thought  and  sound  should 


158  STATEMENT   OF   CHAIRMAN 

apply  as  well  to  all  use  of  the  mother  'tongue,  and  failure  in 
this  respect  accounts  for  many  of  the  stupid  utterances  so  com- 
mon in  our  class-rooms. 

Using  a  vocabulary  should  mean  more  than  merely  finding 
an  English  substitute  for  the  foreign  word.  The  second  and 
most  important  part  of  the  process  is  visualizing  or  otherwise 
securing  a  clear  and  definite  concept  of  what  is  meant,  then  as- 
sociating permanently  this  concept,  and  not  the  English  word 
with  the  foreign  word.  If  this  association  of  concept  and 
foreign  word  can  be  secured  as  swiftly  and  certainly  without 
the  intervention  of  English,  the  English,  of  course,  is  super- 
fluous; but,  if  English  is  the  quickest  and  most  convenient 
means  of  securing  this  association,  there  seems  to  be  no  valid 
reason  for  depriving  ourselves  of  its  aid.  Only,  with  or  with- 
out English,  we  must  not  fail  to  attain  as  our  result  a 
direct  and  accurate  association  of  thought  and  the  foreign 
word. 

Here  the  Gouin-Betis  or  psychological  method  differs  widely 
from  the  extreme  types  of  "natural"  methods,  which,  in  the 
attempt  to  create  an  atmosphere  of  foreign  thought,  rigor- 
ously exclude  all  English.  In  teaching  pendule,  for  instance, 
Betis  did  not  show  the  pupils  a  clock,  neither  was  he  satisfied 
with  merely  saying  "  clock,"  but  he  cleverly  used  English  to 
lead  the  class  to  visualize  various  types  of  clock  known  as 
pendule,  and  left  them  with  a  clear  and  abiding  knowledge  of 
the  word.  So,  in  a  class  of  beginners,  Walter,  who  has 
adopted  many  of  Gouin's  suggestions,  uses  the  mother  tongue 
freely  in  asssociating  clear  and  correct  concepts  with  the  new 
word  he  is  teaching.  If  then  we  finally  get  the  direct  associa- 
tion which  we  desire,  we  see  that  the  question  whether  Eng- 
lish is  or  is  not  excluded  becomes  an  unessential  detail  of 
procedure  and  is  largely  a  matter  of  economy  of  time.  When 
the  pupil's  equipment  fits  him  to  understand  an  explanation 
in  French  as  well  as  one  in  English,  use  the  French,  for  with 
equal  thought  content  an  hour  of  French  alone  is  better  prac- 


OF  THE  COMMITTEE  ON  MODERN   LANGUAGES.      159 

tice  in  learning  French  than  an  hour  half  French  and  half 
English. 

Reference  to  the  Gouin  and  the  natural  methods  suggests 
another  wide  difference  between  them,  in  which  the  truth  lies 
with  neither  extreme.  For  Gouin,  the  verb  and  the  verb  series 
are  the  soul  of  speech ;  for  the  natural  methods,  all  revolves 
about  the  substantive,  the  tangible  thing,  that  can  be  seen  and 
shown  in  connection  with  the  new  word  presented.  In  truth, 
verb  and  noun  must  go  hand  in  hand,  for  an  actor  without 
action  is  as  sterile  as  an  action  without  an  actor  is  unthinka- 
ble. In  any  concrete  example,  word  order  and  the  construction 
of  the  sentence  will  show  which  is  the  more  important  in  the 
mind  of  the  speaker  and  which  must  be  emphasized  as  the 
better  key  to  his  meaning. 

Among  other  processes  that  are  commonly  employed,  we 
may  mention  grammatical  study,  reading  aloud,  writing  from 
dictation,  conversation,  translation  from  and  into  the  foreign 
language  (version  and  theme),  reproduction  orally  or  in  writ- 
ing, paraphrasing,  composition  based  on  the  text,  and  free 
composition.  It  is  not  intended  to  say  what  processes  should 
be  used  or  how  they  should  be  combined  by  any  teacher, 
but  the  following  suggestions  are  offered  for  making  as 
effective  as  possible  whatever  work  the  teacher  may  decide  to 
undertake. 

Grammar  can  be  regarded  as  an  end  by  the  philologist  only. 
For  all  pupils  in  a  secondary  school  it  must  be  the  handmaid 
of  the  text  and  must  be  regarded  as  existing  solely  in  order  to 
make  clearer  the  language  which  it  serves.  The  need  of  a 
rule  and  its  application  should  be  apparent  to  the  pupil  before 
he  isrequired  to  learn  the  rule  ;  words  should  be  seen  in  use 
with  a  context  before  they  are  classified  and  memorized ;  the 
force  of  an  inflection  should  be  made  plain  from  its  use  in  a 
word  group  before  the  pupil  is  asked  to  inflect  the  paradigm  ; 
and  in  the  unceasing  repetition  necessary  to  fix  inflectional 
forms  care  should  be  taken  that  they  are  never  parrot-like 


160  STATEMENT   OF   CHAIRMAN 

repetitions,  devoid  of  thought.  Make  the  text  the  centre  of 
all  instruction ;  base  upon  it  grammar,  conversation,  and  com- 
position; and  the  grammatical  knowledge  derived  from  the 
text  as  a  model  will  be  applied  intelligently  in  written  and 
oral  expression. 

Reading  aloud — now  too  much  neglected  in  the  mother 
tongue  —  should  be  a  favorite  exercise.  With  large  classes  no 
drill  is  so  effective  in  teaching  pronunciation  as  reading  in 
unison  after  the  teacher.  In  later  work  intelligent  reading 
aloud  is  helpful  in  fixing  the  foreign  language  in  the  memory ; 
it  may  take  the  place  of  translation  where  the  simple  character 
of  the  text  and  the  manner  of  reading  give  sufficient  evidence 
that  the  meaning  is  clear;  and  the  practice  is  enjoyable  and 
useful  to  those  who  form  the  habit  of  reading  aloud  in  their 
own  study. 

Writing  from  dictation  has  always  been  much  employed  in 
French  schools  for  French  children  learning  their  own  lan- 
guage, and  it  is  much  to  be  commended.  While  less  difficult 
than  reproduction  or  paraphrasing,  it  is  an  admirable  test  of 
the  care  with  which  a  passage  has  been  studied,  and  the  dicta- 
tion of  unseen  passages  is  an  excellent  criterion  of  the  pupil's 
ability  to  understand  the  spoken  language.  Dictation  may 
begin  early  in  the  course,  and  until  the  very  end  it  will  be 
found  useful  both  as  a  test  and  as  training. 

Conversation  has  been  alternately  praised  and  condemned. 
Some  regard  it  as  enlivening,  stimulating,  and  instructive  — 
the  most  enjoyable  and  profitable  of  all  exercises.  To  others 
it  is  futile,  inane,  productive  of  no  valuable  results,  and  terri- 
bly wasteful  of  time.  It  seems  clear  that  not  all  teachers  and 
not  all  classes  can  use  conversation  to  good  advantage  in  high 
school  work.  The  teacher  must  be  inspiring  and  perfectly  at 
home  in  the  language ;  the  class  must  be  alert,  responsive,  and 
homogeneous ;  the  work  must  be  systematically  planned  and 
followed  out  swiftly  and  directly  to  a  definite  end.  Otherwise 
the  time  can  be   spent  better  in  other  ways.     With  large 


OP   THE   COMMITTEE   ON   MODERN   LANGUAGES.      161 

classes  the  necessary  conditions  rarely  obtain,  and  unfortu- 
nately most  high  school  classes  are  too  large  for  the  best  work. 
Although  conversation  as  a  formal  class  exercise  is  apt  to  be  a 
failure,  there  is  no  class  in  which  a  competent  teacher  will  not 
find  many  opportunities  to  converse  easily  in  the  foreign  lan- 
guage, now  giving  a  simple  explanation,  now  asking  a  question 
and  getting  an  easy  answer,  all  so  naturally  that  no  one  seems 
aware  that  the  foreign  language  is  used.  The  more  of  this  the 
better.  Conversation  of  this  kind  is  the  straight  road  to 
effective  possession  of  a  language ;  neither  strained  nor  forced, 
it  is  good  work. 

Translation,  too,  has  its  warm  friends  and  its  bitter  enemies. 
Reformers  have  worked  as  hard  to  drive  it  out  of  the  class  as 
they  have  done  to  drag  conversation  in ;  but  theme  and  ver- 
sion are  still  neither  dead  nor  moribund,  and  there  is  no  pros- 
pect that  an  exercise  which  has  maintained  itself  since  the 
beginning  of  language  study  is  going  to  vanish  in  the  next 
generation  or  two.  The  difficulty  is  that  the  meat  in  the 
sandwich  has  a  tendency  to  drop  out  and  leave  only  the  bare 
"bread  —  voces  et  inter  eas  nihil  —  in  other  words,  that  transla- 
tion comes  to  be  a  mechanical  substitution  of  the  words  of  one 
language  for  the  words  of  another,  with  little  or  no  thought  in 
the  process,  while  translation  ought  to  mean  the  study  of  a 
passage  until  its  thought  is  clearly  apprehended,  and  then  an 
effort  to  put  that  exact  thought  into  the  other  language  with 
all  the  force  and  beauty  that  our  command  of  the  second 
language  makes  possible.  This,  of  course,  is  translation  of 
the  ideal  sort,  but  it  is  the  kind  of  translation  at  which  all 
translation  should  aim,  and  the  only  kind  which  will  con- 
tribute effectively  to  a  command  of  the  foreign  language  and 
an  appreciation  of  its  qualities.  With  the  other  more  com- 
mon kind  of  translation,  the  pupil  never  reads  French  and 
German,  but  only  the  shabby  English  into  which  he  has  more 
or  less  correctly  paraphrased  the  original ;  he  never  writes 
real   French  or   German,   but  only  English   with  a  foreign 


162  STATEMENT  OF   CHAIRMAN 

vocabulary.  Such  translation  is  rightly  condemned  as  vicious 
and  demoralizing,  a  veritable  hindrance  to  the  learner;  but 
only  the  most  vigorous  and  persistent  efforts  will  keep  the 
beginner  from  translating  in  just  that  way.  Among  helpful 
devices  for  preventing  it,  we  suggest  oral  translation  of  sen- 
tences heard  but  not  seen,  the  translation,  with  book  closed,  of 
a  sentence  that  the  pupil  has  just  read,  or  other  ways  for 
avoiding  the  mot  d,  mot  and  securing  a  grasp  of  the  word  group 
as  a  whole  with  a  complete  meaning. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  "  So  and  so."  "  Then  say  that !  " 
will  sometimes  get  a  real  translation  instead  of  the  mon- 
strosity that  has  been  first  offered  by  the  pupil. 

Underlying  all  the  discussion  for  and  against  translation  is 
the  inevitable  fact  that  not  one  student  in  a  thousand  can 
expect  to  gain  such  control  of  a  second  language  that  he  can 
frame  his  thought  in  it  as  quickly  and  effectively  as  in  his 
own ;  hence,  whenever  a  thing  is  to  him  real  and  important, 
he  will  think  it  through  first  in  the  vernacular,  after  which 
any  expression  of  the  thought  in  a  second  language  cannot 
fail  to  be  more  or  less  consciously  and  directly  a  translation. 
The  foreign  correspondent  must  translate  when  he  communi- 
cates the  information  received  from  abroad ;  he  must  translate 
when  he  writes  in  a  foreign  language  the  instructions  received 
in  English  from  his  employer ;  the  engineer,  the  lawyer,  the 
physician,  the  scientist,  the  philosopher,  the  author  must  all 
translate  when  they  proceed  to  use  in  their  business  the  infor- 
mation! gleaned  from  foreign  sources.  Even  the  teacher  must 
translate  when  he  tells  his  associates  what  our  colleagues  in 
France  or  Germany  say  of  the  direct  methods.  The  practical 
thing,  then,  is  to  train  the  pupil  to  translate  as  he  ought,  and 
to  depend  for  his  expression  in  the  new  language,  not  on  dic- 
tionary substitutes,  but  on  the  treasure  of  foreign  words  and 
expressions  which  he  has  acquired  and  learned  to  associate 
with  their  correct  meaning.  And  the  time  to  teach  him  this, 
which  is  no  easy  thing  to  learn,  is  while  he  is  learning  the 


OF   THE  COMMITTEE   ON   MODERN   LANGUAGES.      163 

language,  for  practice  in  doing  it  must  be  long  and  careful  if 
it  is  to  be  successful. 

In  the  give  and  take  of  conversation  the  rapidity  of  the 
process  often  excludes  translation,  but  there  are  comparatively 
few  who  will  ever  converse  enjoy  ably  in  a  foreign  tongue,  and 
the  long  practice  which  is  an  essential  condition  will  usually 
bring  with  it  the  power. 

To  read  and  understand  a  foreign  language  without  transla- 
tion is  much  easier  than  to  speak  or  write  in  it.  Until,  how- 
ever, one  can  give  in  his  own  language  a  swift  and  accurate 
rendering  of  what  he  has  read,  there  is  good  reason  to  doubt 
whether  he  has  understood  clearly  and  completely,  or  whether 
he  has  been  satisfied  with  the  vague  sort  of  semicomprehen- 
sion  which,  if  unchallenged,  sometimes  passes  for  understand- 
ing when  our  pupils  read  the  mother  tongue.  Inability  to 
translate  rapidly  and  well  must  imply  either  failure  to  under- 
stand clearly  what  has  been  read  or  else  a  poor  command  of 
English.  If  the  latter,  the  American  boy  or  girl  needs  nothing 
so  much  as  just  the  kind  of  training  in  English  which  this 
translation  affords ;  if  the  former,  we  need  to  try  the  pupil  by 
the  test  which  most  swiftly  and  certainly  reveals  the  weak- 
ness. Hence  translation  of  the  right  sort,  both  from  and  into 
the  foreign  language,  must  not  be  omitted  from  high  school 
courses. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  student  must  be  trained  to  get 
thought  directly  from  the  original,  and  instruction  in  the 
foreign  language  is  not  intended  primarily  as  instruction  in 
English.  So  the  wise  teacher  will  give  but  a  portion  of  his 
time  to  translation,  and  he  will  avoid  too  great  use  of  spoken 
English  by  having  a  considerable  part  of  the  translation  which 
he  deems  necessary  written  rather  than  oral. 

The  only  safe  use  of  a  foreign  language  is  that  which  imi- 
tates the  expressions  of  scholarly  natives.  Hence  all  work  of 
the  learner  must  be  based  on  good  models,  and  the  stages  of 
imitation  seem  to  be :  Exact  reproduction  j  paraphrasing,  with 


164  STATEMENT   OF  CHAIRMAN 

variations  of  persons,  number,  tense,  etc.,  and  substitution  of 
other  suitable  words  for  those  of  the  text ;  free  reproduction 
or  composition  based  on  the  text  and  closely  following  it ;  and 
free  composition.  The  last  is  the  highest  and  most  difficult 
achievement,  and  it  cannot  wisely  be  attempted  until  the 
learner  has  had  ample  experience  with  the  forms  of  expres- 
sion which  the  native  uses  in  similar  composition.  Some  ex- 
cellent teachers  refuse  to  attempt  it  before  the  fourth  year  of 
the  course.  Premature  attempts  at  free  composition  are  as 
bad  for  style  as  premature  chattering  is  bad  for  good  pronun- 
ciation. Both  result  in  fixing  wrong  notions  and  bad  habits 
which  are  very  hard  to  overcome.  It  is  better  policy  to  make 
haste  slowly  and  to  be  sure  that  the  proper  foundation  is  laid 
before  we  try  to  build  upon  it. 

How  far  may  we  reasonably  expect  to  go  in  the  second  and 
third  years  of  study  ?  Much  will  depend  on  how  successful 
we  are  in  overcoming  the  aversion  of  parents  and  school  boards 
to  the  elimination  of  the  incompetent  at  the  end  of  the  first 
year,  and  this  must  be  done  on  the  ground  that  for  those  whom 
we  seek  to  eliminate  further  study  of  the  foreign  language  is 
less  profitable  than  the  same  time  spent  studying  something 
in  which  they  can  get  better  results.  If  modern  language 
classes  can  thus  be  restricted  to  those  who  show  a  reasonable 
fondness  and  aptitude  for  the  study,  by  the  end  of  the  third 
year  the  work  accomplished  should  be  about  as  set  forth  for 
the  intermediate  course  in  the  Eeport  of  the  Committee  of 
Twelve.  It  is  probable  that  most  teachers  will  prefer  to  read 
in  class  a  somewhat  smaller  number  of  pages  than  is  there 
suggested.  There  is  a  strong  belief  that  a  small  amount  thor- 
oughly prepared  and  carefully  studied  leaves  a  larger  perma- 
nent possession  than  is  retained  from  reading  hastily  several 
pages,  and  some  would  reduce  the  amount  required  to  one-half 
that  specified  by  the  committee  of  twelve.  Others  fear  that 
asking  a  smaller  amount  will  mean  more  dawdling,  less  work, 
and  the  same  poor  quality  with  only  half  the  quantity.     The 


OF  THE   COMMITTEE   ON  MODERN  LANGUAGES.      165 

solution  seems  to  be  a  reasonable  amount  of  honest  work,  at 
times  so  concentrated  as  to  permanently  impress  essentials 
and  at  other  times  so  distributed  as  to  stimulate  alertness, 
develop  the  power  of  swift  vision  and  rapid  judgment,  and 
give  opportunity  for  a  fairly  wide  range  of  style  and  vocabu- 
lary. In  either  type  of  lesson  the  teacher  must  have  a  clear 
notion  of  just  what  he  is  working  for,  and  he  must  devote  him- 
self to  getting  it.  The  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Twelve 
appeared  about  15  years  ago,  and  the  improvement  in  the 
equipment  of  teachers  and  in  the  methods  commonly  employed 
at  present  should  make  it  possible  to  insist  more  strongly  upon 
the  oral  side  of  the  instruction.  If  this  is  effectively  done, 
the  greater  thoroughness  of  the  treatment  in  class  should  more 
than  compensate  for  a  reduced  number  of  pages  read. 

For  the  fourth  year  we  may  add  to  our  general  aims  such 
special  work  in  scientific  or  commercial  subjects  as  may  be 
required  by  particular  schools.  As  to  the  amount  of  work,  it 
is  probable  that  the  advanced  courses  outlined  in  the  Report 
of  the  Committee  of  Twelve  are  rather  more  than  can  be  ex- 
pected of  even  the  best  high  schools  in  a  four  years'  course. 

In  the  fourth  year  the  foreign  language  will  be  generally 
used  in  class,  and  good  pupils  should  develop  considerable 
facility  of  correct  expression.  Nevertheless,  in  French,  for 
instance,  we,  with  our  maximum  of  four  years'  (20  hours') 
study,  cannot  hope  for  results  equal  to  those  attained  by  a 
German  oberrecdschule  with  nine  years  (47  hours)  or  of  a 
realgymnasium,  with  seven  years  (29  hours)  backed  by  nine 
years  of  Latin.  To-day  the  work  of  our  best  schools  is  at 
least  as  good  as  the  comparison  of  time  allowances  would  lead 
us  to  expect;  and  if  we  compare  the  probable  utility  of  a 
foreign  language  to  the  average  American  boy  with  its  useful- 
ness to  his  French  or  German  cousin,  his  ratio  of  efficiency 
would  doubtless  be  greater  than  his  ratio  of  need.  That,  how- 
ever, is  no  answer  to  the  demand  that  an  American  pupil  who 
wishes  good  instruction  in  a  foreign  language  should  be  able  to 


166  STATEMENT   OF   CHAIRMAN 

have  as  complete  a  course  and  do  as  good  work  as  the  French 
or  German  pupil.  The  committee  believes,  however,  that  this 
increased  efficiency  cannot  come  through  an  increased  time 
allowance  in  the  present  high  school  years ;  nor  can  more  be 
expected  than  our  best  teachers  are  now  doing  with  the  time 
and  material  at  their  disposal.  Improvement  must  be  sought, 
first,  from  an  increase  in  the  number  of  well-equipped  and 
efficient  teachers,  and  second,  from  an  extension  of  the  years 
of  modern  language  study  downward  to  the  age  of  10,  at 
which  time  the  boy  abroad  has  begun  it. 

V.     TEACHERS    AND    TEXTS. 

If  the  American  public  is  about  to  insist  on  better  work  in 
the  field  of  modern  languages,  it  must  recognize  that  the  first 
essential  is  a  body  of  well-prepared  teachers,  and  that  the 
training  of  such  teachers  is  long  and  expensive,  including 
foreign  residence  of  at  least  a  year  in  addition  to  the  usual 
equipment  of  an  American  teacher.  Unless  the  schools  will 
pay  a  teacher  of  French  or  German  enough  more  than  they 
pay  a  teacher  of  English  or  science  or  history  or  mathematics 
to  cover  this  initial  expense,  the  colleges  must  so  plan  the 
modern  language  work  for  those  who  intend  to  teach  that  the 
youth  on  graduating  may  be  as  competent  to  teach  French  or 
German  as  he  is  to  teach  the  other  subjects.  Perhaps  he  is  so 
already ;  but  while  neither  he  nor  his  pupils  are  likely  to  be 
tested  by  the  man  in  the  street  as  to  his  knowledge  of  Latin 
or  physics  or  algebra,  in  this  cosmopolitan  age  he  cannot  turn 
a  corner,  enter  a  hotel  or  a  street  car  without  facing  some  well- 
informed  and  pitiless  critic  who  knows  at  once  that  his  speech 
is  not  that  of  Paris  or  Berlin.  The  critic  may,  indeed,  be  a 
cook  or  a  fiddler,  but  he  hears  with  scorn  our  poor  instructor's 
attempts  to  speak  French  or  German  and  is  not  reluctant  to 
express  his  derision.  Nor  will  it  do  to  hire  the  cook  or  the 
fiddler  to  teach  for  us,  for  they  have  already  shown  too  often 
that  they  cannot  meet  the  other  requirements  of  our  high 


OF  THE   COMMITTEE   ON   MODERN   LANGUAGES.       167 

schools.  We  must  have  a  large  number  of  American-born 
teachers  who  know  the  foreign  language  too  well  to  be  ridic- 
ulous when  they  attempt  to  speak  it.  As  school  boards  are 
likely  to  insist  that  a  teacher  is  merely  a  teacher,  worth  so 
many  dollars  a  year,  without  reference  to  what  he  teaches  or 
what  it  cost  to  learn  it,  the  colleges  seem  bound  to  face  the 
problem  of  meeting  the  demand  for  young  people  better  fitted 
to  teach  French,  German,  or  Spanish.  But  just  how  they  are 
to  do  this  is  a  problem  for  the  colleges  and  not  for  this  com- 
mittee. 

Section  V  of  the  Keport  of  the  Committee  of  Twelve  deals 
with  the  study  of  modern  languages  in  the  grades  below  the 
high  school.  We  are  in  complete  accord  with  the  conclusions 
of  that  report  that  the  study  of  a  foreign  language  in  the 
grades  should  be  optional,  restricted  to  those  who  will  probably 
continue  it,  and  allowed  only  in  small  classes,  with  a  daily 
lesson,  and  with  a  competent  teacher.  But  here  we  meet 
the  obstacles  of  precedent,  which  says  that  it  has  not  been 
done  that  way  hitherto;  of  routine,  which  pleads  that  such 
special  arrangements  would  involve  great  trouble  and  incon- 
venience to  the  schools;  and  of  expense,  which  asserts  that 
such  teachers  are  hard  to  find,  prefer  high  school  service,  and 
could  not  be  kept  without  a  salary  larger  than  that  paid  to 
most  other  teachers  in  the  same  school.  Possibly  we  might 
add  to  these,  administrative  inability  to  understand  the  situa- 
tion and  grapple  with  it  successfully ;  for  it  is  the  task  of  an 
expert,  and  few  school  boards  or  school  superintendents  are 
modern  language  experts. 

Here,  too,  we  find  ourselves  in  the  vicious  circle  of  insuffi- 
cient teachers,  due  to  insufficient  college  training,  due  to  in- 
sufficient material,  due  to  insufficient  teachers,  and  so  on  round 
again.  The  only  way  to  break  into  such  a  circle  is  to  break 
into  it  wherever  we  strike  it;  to  demand  that  the  cities  at 
once  get  some  good  modern  language  work  done  in  the  grades, 
and  pay  a  reasonable  price  for  it;  that  the  colleges  at  once 


168  STATEMENT   OF   CHAIRMAN 

give  especial  attention  to  training  more  competent  teachers  of 
modern  languages ;  and  that  ill-equipped  teachers  get  to  work 
in  summer  schools  or  take  a  Sabbatical  year  abroad,  the  cities 
sharing  this  burden  by  granting  them  half  pay  on  reasonable 
conditions. 

If  many  important  points  of  modern  language  work  are  not 
considered  in  this  statement,  it  is  because  the  Report  of  the 
Committee  of  Twelve,  made  15  years  ago,  was  so  scholarly  and 
so  comprehensive  that  it  would  be  a  work  of  supererogation  to 
repeat,  and  evidence  of  presumption  to  attempt  to  improve 
most  that  was  said  in  that  report.  It  is  sufficient  to  call  atten- 
tion to  certain  lines  along  which  further  constructive  sugges- 
tions seemed  likely  to  be  useful. 

It  has  been  stated  that  conditions  have  so  changed  in  the 
past  15  years  that  a  list  of  desirable  texts  ought  to  be  pub- 
lished now,  but  the  experience  of  the  German  teachers  some 
years  ago  in  publishing  a  "kanon"  of  French  and  English 
school  texts  showed  the  efficient  performance  of  so  great  a 
work  to  be  far  beyond  the  resources  of  this  committee ;  and 
with  the  many  sources  of  information  now  available,  it  seemed 
best  to  mention  no  specific  texts.  We  venture  only  to  suggest 
that  in  choosing  a  text  for  any  particular  class,  one  should 
consider : 

The  date  of  the  text.  For  school  work  modern  texts  are 
almost  always  preferable. 

Its  length.  Long  texts  grow  monotonous  and  give  too  little 
variety  of  style  and  vocabulary. 

Its  national  quality.  It  should  be  a  distinctive  product  of 
the  race  it  depicts. 

Its  adaptation  to  the  age,  sex,  and  thought  of  the  pupil. 

Its  informational  content.  Without  being  dull,  it  should 
give  something  worth  remembering. 

William  B.  Snow,  Chairman. 
English  High  School, 

Boston,  Mass. 


OF  THE  COMMITTEE   ON   MODERN   LANGUAGES.       169 

The  other  members  of  the  committee  on  modern  languages 
are  as  follows : 

J.  F.  Broussard,  University  of  Louisiana,  Baton  Rouge,  La. 

William  H.  Clifford,  East  Side  High  School,  Denver,  Colo. 

Annie  D.  Ddnster,  William  Penn  High  School,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Charles  H.  Handschin,  Professor  of  German,  Miami  University, 
Oxford,  Ohio. 

Joel  Hathaway,  High  School  of  Commerce,  Boston,  Mass. 

Frederick  S.  Hemry,  Tome  School,  Port  Deposit,  Md. 

Carl  F.  Krause,  Jamaica  High  School,  Jamaica,  N.  Y. 

Alexis  F.  Lange,  Dean  of  the  College  of  Faculties,  University  of 
California,  Berkeley,  Cal. 

Edward  Manley,  Englewood  High  School,  Chicago,  HI. 

Alfred  Nonnez,  Walnut  Hills  High  School,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

William  R.  Price,  State  Department  of  Education,  Albany,  N.  Y. 


ON    THE  USE    OF   THE    FOREIGN    LANGUAGE    IN 
THE  CLASS-ROOM.1 

BY  PBOFESSOR  H.  C.  G.  VON  JAGEMANN,  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 

Questions  connected  with  methods  of  teaching  are  largely- 
economic  questions.  Pedagogical  theory  may  devise  what 
seems  to  be  a  thoroughly  scientific  method  of  teaching  a 
foreign  language ;  the  teacher,  however,  is  less  concerned 
with  what,  on  general  principles,  ought  to  be  done,  than  he  is 
with  what  he  can  do  thoroughly  well,  with  a  given  number 
of  pupils,  of  a  given  capacity,  in  a  given  time.  The  ideal 
method  of  teaching  is  rarely  practicable  in  the  class-room, 
owing  to  the  great  limitations  of  teaching-force  and  time; 
and  he  who  would  be  a 'successful  teacher  must  recognize 
these  limitations,  must  adapt  his  ideal  method  to  the  real 
conditions,  and  must  refrain  from  trying  to  do  the  things 
which,  from  the  nature  of  these  conditions,  cannot  be  done 
satisfactorily. 

The  various  reforms  in  the  teaching  of  modern  languages  that 
have  been  advocated  time  and  again  since  Comenius,  are  only 
in  part  applicable  to  the  conditions  ordinarily  found  in  schools 
and  colleges.  It  seems,  e.g.,  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that 
for  grown  persons  the  "  Natural  Method  "  of  learning  a  language, 
i.e.,  the  method  by  which  children  learn  their  mother  tongue, 
would  be  as  unnatural  as  it  would  be  for  children  to  learn  their 
mother  tongue  from  Webster's  Dictionary  ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  not  at  all  certain  that  even  little  children  might 
not  learn  their  mother  tongue  more  rapidly  if  they  received 

1  A  part  of  the  material  contained  in  this  paper  was  printed  in  the  Transactions 
of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  vol.  i.  pp.  220  ff. 


172  ON   THE  USE  OP  THE 

in  it  judicious  and  systematic  instruction,  adapted  to  their 
age,  instead  of  being  left  to  "  pick  it  up,"  with  a  great  waste 
of  energy  upon  material  of  which  they  cannot  yet  make  use. 
But  even  in  the  improved,  and  hence  to  that  extent  no  longer 
"  natural,"  form  which  this  method  has  gradually  taken  in  the 
hands  of  some  very  skilful  teachers,  its  most  distinctive 
features  render  it  still  unfit  for  use  in  ordinary  college  classes. 
These  distinctive  features  are :  (1)  all  instruction  is  in  the 
first  place  oral ;  and  (2)  the  only  medium  of  communication 
permitted  between  teacher  and  pupil  is  the  language  to  be 
taught. 

To  make  instruction  oral  to  the  extent  which  the  Natural 
Method  requires  is  out  of  the  question,  because  in  college 
classes  progress  depends  very  largely  upon  the  amount  of 
home-study  which  the  student  can  give  to  the  subject,  and 
home-study  is  made  very  difficult  when  the  instruction  in 
class  is  largely  oral.  To  be  sure,  there  are  beginners'  books 
in  the  foreign  idiom,  but  no  one  has  as  yet  succeeded  in  writ- 
ing a  systematic  text-book  in  a  foreign  language  which  a  stu- 
dent can  use  without  frequently  resorting  to  a  dictionary  or 
vocabulary  when  the  teacher  is  not  at  hand ;  and  that  way  of 
finding  out  the  meaning  of  a  word  is  excluded  by  the  strict 
advocates  of  the  Natural  Method.  How  then  is  the  student 
to  be  employed  in  the  two  hours  of  home-study  for  each  reci- 
tation, the  minimum  ordinarily  expected  ?  As  long  as  diction- 
aries and  vocabularies  are  excluded,  the  Natural  Method  is 
possible  only  in  schools  where  recitations  are  frequent,  and 
where  no  work  is  expected  of  the  pupil  outside  of  the  class- 
room, excepting,  perhaps,  memorizing  matter  with  which  he 
has  been  made  thoroughly  familiar  in  the  class-room.  Again, 
purely  oral  work  itself  is  very  difficult,  if  not  impossible, 
with  classes  as  large  as  are  usually  found  in  colleges.  The 
various  "Schools  of  Languages"  that  have  produced  good 
results  with  certain  special  varieties  of  the  Natural  Method, 
insist  upon  very  small  classes,  and  do  not  generally  burden 


FOREIGN  LANGUAGE  IN  THE  CLASS-ROOM.        173 

the  teacher  with  more  than  six  pupils  at  a  time.  With  classes 
as  small  as  that,  oral  instruction  might  be  made  more  success- 
ful in  colleges  and  schools. 

The  second  rule  of  the  Natural  Method,  that  the  language 
to  be  taught  should  be  the  only  medium  of  communication 
between  teacher  and  pupil,  deprives  the  student  of  one  of  the 
most  useful  instruments  for  learning  a  foreign  language,  viz., 
his  mother  tongue.  Because  a  child,  in  trying  to  understand 
a  new  word  or  a  strange  idiom,  does  not  draw  for  aid  upon  a 
foreign  language  which  it  does  not  understand  at  all,  this  is 
not  a  good  reason  why  a  grown  person  in  full  possession  of 
one  language  should  not  make  use  of  it  for  the  purpose  of 
correctly  classifying  the,  material  of  any  other  language  that 
he  may  wish  to  acquire..  It  would  seem  distinctly  unnatural 
if  he  did  not  make  use  of  it.  In  fact,  it  would  be  quite  im- 
possible. His  ultimate  aim,  to  be  sure,  should  be  to  under- 
stand and  use  the  foreign  language  without  the  intervention 
of  his  own,  i.e.,  without  translating ;  but  at  first,  and  tem- 
porarily, voluntarily  or  involuntarily,  he  will  associate  the 
new  word  with  the  old,  and  not  directly  with  the  thing,  until, 
by  continued  practice,  he  learns,  so  to  speak,  to  skip  one  of 
the  two  mental  processes,  and  learns  to  connect  the  new  word 
directly  with  the  thing,  and  vice  versa.  The  words  of  our 
mother  tongue  are  so  firmly  associated  in  our  minds  with  the 
things  which  they  signify,  that  it  requires  a  distinct  and  pro- 
longed mental  effort  to  displace  them  so  much  as  to  make  room 
for  a  new  word.  That  this  is  natural  and  in  accordance  with 
the  laws  of  the  human  mind  appears  from  the  fact  that  even 
within  the  territory  of  our  native  language  it  is  difiicult  for 
us  to  learn  a  new  word  without  associating  it  at  first  with  one 
with  which  we  have  previously  been  acquainted ;  and  even  in 
learning  the  name  of  a  new  thing,  or  of  one  for  which  we 
have  not  known  any  special  name,  we  are  very  much  inclined 
not  to  be  satisfied  with  the  new  term,  but  we  involuntarily 
seek  at  least  for  a  definition  made  up  of  words  of  our  old 


174  ON  THE  USB  OF  THE 

stock.  It  is  doubtless  well  to  make,  from  the  very  beginning, 
systematic  efforts  to  induce  the  student  to  connect  the  new- 
words  with  the  things  themselves,  and  not  with  the  words  of 
his  native  language.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no 
economy  of  time  or  strength  in  persistently  rejecting  the 
help  which  the  student's  native  language  offers,  when  we  wish 
to  make  clear  to  him  the  meaning  of  a  new  word  or  idiom, 
especially  as  we  cannot  prevent  the  familiar  native  word  from 
coming  up  in  the  pupil's  mind,  as  soon  as  he  has  caught  the 
drift  of  an  often  long  and  laborious,  though  perhaps  success- 
ful, definition  in  the  foreign  idiom. 

While,  therefore,  we  do  not  believe  that  the  language  to  be 
taught  should  form  the  only  medium  of  communication  be- 
tween teacher  and  pupil,  we  are  yet  convinced  that  instruction 
in  modern  languages  in  colleges  and  schools  is  rendered  more 
effective  by  making  in  the  class-room  as  much  use  of  the  for- 
eign idiom  as  the  varying  conditions  of  time,  teaching-force,  and 
general  and  special  advancement  of  the  pupils  will  allow.  In 
order  not  to  be  misunderstood,  however,  we  must  state  at  once 
that  we  do  not  regard  the  ability  to  speak  the  foreign  language 
as  the  chief  object  of  its  study  in  school  or  college.  The 
difference  between  two  persons,  both  knowing  German  thor- 
oughly well,  but  one  of  them  speaking  the  language,  while  the 
other  does  not,  is  simply  this :  the  former  has  pronounced  so 
often  the  most  common  words  of  the  language  in  their  vari- 
ous combinations  with  other  words,  that  the  mental  process 
of  associating  certain  ideas  with  the  German  words,  and  the 
subsequent  reaction  upon  the  speech-organs,  has  with  him 
become  habitual  and  rapid,  while  with  the  latter  person  it  is 
unwonted  and  slow.  Hence,  the  acquisition  of  a  speaking 
knowledge  of  a  foreign  language  does  not,  in  itself,  imply  any 
increase  in  real  knowledge  or  reasoning-power ;  and  it  has, 
therefore,  no  more  claim  to  a  place  among  serious  college 
studies  than  any  other  of  the  numerous  practical  applications 
of  scientific  or  artistic  principles.     The  ground  on  which  we 


FOREIGN  LANGUAGE  IN  THE  CLASS-ROOM.  175 

wish  to  justify  the  use  of  the  foreign  language  in  the  class- 
room is  not  that  it  gives  the  student  a  speaking  knowledge  of 
it,  but  that  it  leads  to  a  more  thorough  general  acquaintance 
with  the  language,  and  a  more  intelligent  appreciation  of  its 
literature. 

As  we  have  stated  above,  the  extent  to  which  the  foreign 
idiom  should  be  used  in  the  class-room  will  depend  on  the 
varying  conditions  of  time,  teaching-force,  and  general  and 
special  advancement  of  the  pupil.  Any  use  of  the  foreign 
idiom  as  a  means  of  communication  between  teacher  and  pupil 
requires  intense  mental  application  on  both  sides ;  for  this 
reason,  in  elementary  or  second-year's  classes,  it  can  hardly  be 
recommended,  unless  the  classes  are  smaller  than  they  are  in 
most  colleges.  It  is  hoped  that  the  time  will  come  when 
teachers  of  German  will  not  be  burdened  with  larger  elemen- 
tary classes  than  their  colleagues  in  Greek  now  are  ;  then  there 
will  be  no  longer  any  objection  to  the  use  of  German  in  the 
class-room  on  the  ground  of  the  size  of  the  classes.  Experience 
shows  that  in  beginners'  classes  not  exceeding  twenty-five,  the 
German  language  may  to  advantage  be  used  from  the  very 
start,  even  in  teaching  the  elements  of  grammar.  The  meth- 
od which  we  recommend  is,  briefly,  the  following  :  — 

Teach  the  student,  by  any  method  you  may  choose,  the  use 
of  about  fifty  nouns,  twenty-five  adjectives,  the  numerals,  a 
few  particles,  and  a  few  forms  of  the  auxiliaries.  A  week 
will  amply  suffice  for  this.  The  student  will  then  be  able  to 
understand  a  simple  grammatical  principle  if  stated  in  Ger- 
man :  — 

Die  deutsche  Sprache  hat  zwei  Declinationen. 

Die  erste  Declination  hat  drei  Klassen. 

Die  erste  Klasse  hat  in  der  Mehrzahl  keine  Endung,  etc. 

These  are  sentences  which  the  German  student  of  a  week  or 
two  will  understand  as  readily  as  though  they  were  written 
or  spoken  in  English.     The  statement  and  explanation,  in 


176  0*T  THE  USE  OP  THE 

German,  of  grammatical  principles  is  much  easier  than  is 
commonly  supposed.  It  requires  at  first  a  little  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  teacher,  to  couch  his  explanations  in  such  plain 
language  as  his  students  can  understand.  But  this  art  may 
soon  be  acquired.  A  calculation  shows  that  the  elements  of 
German  can  be  taught  according  to  any  of  the  grammars  com- 
monly used,  with  the  use  of  about  eighty-five  grammatical 
terms,  mostly,  of  course,  of  Latin  extraction.  If  the  German 
language  is  to  be  used  as  a  means  of  communication  between 
teacher  and  pupil,  sixty-four  of  these  terms,  or  about  seventy- 
five  per  cent,  may  be  used  in  so  slightly  modified  a  form,  that 
the  student  will  easily  understand  them  the  first  time  they 
are  used,  and  this  without  unduly  resorting  to  Latinisms, 
using  merely  the  same  terminology  that  is  used  in  Germany 
in  all  schools  of  a  higher  grade.  In  the  case  of  twenty-three 
words,  or  twenty-seven  per  cent,  is  the  corresponding  German 
word  of  German  origin  preferable ;  in  only  a  few  cases,  like 
"  Ablaut "  and  "  Umlaut,"  is  it  necessary  to  employ  a  purely 
German  word.  Some  teachers  will  find  it  more  advantageous 
to  use  as  much  as  practicable  a  purely  German  terminology, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  a  certain  gain  in  teaching  such  terms  as 
"  Hauptwort "  and  "  Bindewort ;  "  but  even  in  that  case  the 
student  will  have  to  learn  only  forty-eight  words  which  he 
does  not  know,  in  slightly  modified  form,  from  English  or 
Latin  Grammar,  and  most  of  them,  like  those  cited  above,  are 
of  very  transparent  signification.  Aside  from  these  technical 
terms,  only  the  most  common  words  which  every  student 
should  know,  will  be  needed  to  make  up  an  elementary  Ger- 
man grammar  in  German.  As  the  time  arrives  for  the  stu- 
dent to  grapple  with  the  more  intricate  laws  of  the  language, 
he  will  be  able  to  understand  the  more  difficult  phraseology 
needed  to  express  them.  And,  we  may  add,  if  a  teacher  suc- 
ceeds in  couching  a  new  grammatical  principle  in  such  lan- 
guage as  his  pupils  with  close  attention  can  understand,  it 
will  make  a  greater  impression  upon  them  than  an  ordinary 
explanation  in  English. 


FOREIGN  LANGUAGE  IN  THE  CLASS-ROOM.  177 

Little  stress  should  at  first  be  laid  on  translation  from  Eng- 
lish into  German.  The  method  long  used  in  Larousse's  gram- 
mars and  lexicologies  for  the  public  schools  of  France  is  far 
preferable  ;  and,  besides,  the  place  of  translation  into  German 
may  be  largely  taken  by  the  answers  to  grammatical  and 
lexicological  questions  which  the  pupil  must  give  in  German. 
Nor  should  translation  in  class  from  German  into  English 
receive  as  much  time  as  it  ordinarily  does.  Interpretation  in 
German  should  be  largely  substituted.  The  chief  use  of  trans- 
lating in  class  what  the  student  has  read  at  home,  is  to  assure 
the  teacher  that  the  student  has  understood  the  true  meaning 
of  the  text.  If  he  can  assure  himself  of  this  by  way  of  asking 
questions  on  the  text  in  German,  additional  training  for  the 
pupil  is  secured.  How  do  teachers  teach  German  in  German 
schools  or  English  in  English  schools  ?  If  the  class  read 
such  matter  as  at  their  stage  of  advancement  they  should  read, 
—  and  we  are  always  inclined  to  give  our  students  too  diffi- 
cult things  to  read,  —  the  greater  part  of  the  text  should  be 
readily  understood  by  the  student.  There  will  be  difficult 
passages,  and  there  should  be ;  but  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases  the  difficulty  of  a  passage  hinges  upon  the  meaning  or 
syntactical  relation  of  one  or  two  words,  and,  with  a  sufficient 
German  grammatical  vocabulary  at  his  disposal,  the  teacher 
can  generally  explain  such  meaning  or  relation  without  leav- 
ing the  territory  of  the  German  language.  If  this  be  done  as 
a  rule,  an  occasional  resorting  to  translation,  if  it  be  deemed 
best,  will  do  no  harm. 

This  is,  in  outline,  the  method  we  should  recommend.  Let 
us  now  turn  to  a  consideration  of  the  advantages  it  offers. 
Everybody  will  agree  that  the  ideal  method  of  studying  Ger- 
man is  to  go  to  Germany,  mingle  with  the  people,  read  news- 
papers, go  to  the  theatre,  and,  last,  but  not  least,  place  one's 
self  under  an  experienced  teacher  who  has  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  English  and  understands  the  student's  difficulties  and 
can  answer  his  questions.     Under  such  conditions  rapid  prog- 


J 

178  ON  THE  USB  OF  THE 

ress  and  good  results  are  inevitable.  Now,  what  are  the  es- 
sential features  of  these  conditions,  and  to  what  extent  may 
they  be  reproduced  in  the  class-room  ?  Is  there  anything 
peculiar  about  the  atmosphere  of  Germany  that  makes  it  easier 
to  learn  German  there  than  here  ?  Doubtless,  to  understand 
a  nation's  literature,  it  is  very  desirable  to  see  the  country, 
observe  the  habits,  and  study  the  character  of  the  people,  and 
see  as  much  as  possible  of  their  life  in  all  its  phases ;  but  in 
order  merely  to  learn  the  language,  such  direct  contact  with 
country  and  people  is  of  much  less  importance.  The  reason 
why  we  make  such  rapid  progress  in  a  foreign  language  as 
soon  as  we  arrive  in  the  country  where  it  is  spoken,  is  not  so 
much  that  we  now  study  the  language  in  its  own  home,  but 
rather  that  we  have  so  many  more  opportunities  to  hear  and 
speak  it.  The  difference  between  the .  training  which  we  get 
in  the  class-room  by  the  ordinary  methods  and  that  which  we 
get  in  the  foreign  country  is  not  necessarily  one  of  kind,  but 
one  of  quantity.  It  is  one  of  kind  in  so  far  as  in  the  foreign 
country  we  often  have  occasion  to  associate  a  new  word  or 
idiom  with  some  personal  observation  or  experience,  which 
impresses  it  upon  our  minds ;  but  this  naturally  holds  good 
only  of  a  limited  part  of  the  language-material,  and,  to  a  small 
extent,  this  advantage  may  be  secured  even  in  ordinary  class- 
instruction.  The  most  essential  difference  is,  as  we  have  said, 
one  of  quantity,  and  this  difference  in  quantity  is  enormous. 
No  method  of  teaching  can  make  up  for  the  advantages  which 
a  stay  in  the  foreign  country  offers ;  but  we  contend  that  a 
more  extensive  use  of  the  foreign  language  in  the  class-room 
can  greatly  reduce  the  disadvantages  under  which  class-in- 
struction at  home  ordinarily  labors. 

In  the  majority  of  institutions  with  which  we  are  acquainted, 
by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  time  devoted  to  German  is  given 
to  translation  from  German  into  English,  and  translation  from 
English  into  German.  Neither  exercise  allows  the  student  to 
think  in  German  for  more  than  a  few  moments  consecutively, 


FOREIGN  LANGUAGE  IN  THE   CLASS-ROOM.  179 

even  if  he  tried,  not  to  speak  of  its  affording  him  absolutely 
no  incentive  to  do  so.  Aside  from  the  reading  of  the  German 
text,  and  even  that  is  not  always  done,  the  student  hears  and 
speaks  nothing  but  English;  in  other  words,  for  about  ten 
minutes  out  of  possible  fifty,  he  learns  German,  the  remaining 
forty  minutes  he  learns  facts  about  German.  On  the  other 
hand,  if,  as  above  suggested,  the  instruction  be  carried  on 
entirely  in  German,  the  student  will  learn  German  for  fifty 
minutes.  In  addition  to  the  study  of  the  grammatical  subject 
under  discussion,  or  of  the  text  before  him,  he  has  all  the 
grammatical,  lexicological,  and  literary  comments  in  German. 
We  all  know  the  value  of  a  vast  amount  of  easy  reading  for 
the  acquisition,  of  a  language.  It  seems  a  low  estimate  if  we 
consider  the  amount  of  German  the  student  will  hear  in  each 
recitation  over  and  above  the  text  itself,  equal  to  ten  ordinary 
pages  of  an  easy  text ;  this  would  be  equal  to  from  one  thou- 
sand to  two  thousand  pages  a  year,  according  to  the  number  of 
recitations.  It  seems  evident  that  this  must  considerably  in- 
crease and  strengthen  the  student's  knowledge  of  the  language. 
As  stated  above,  the  reason  of  the  rapid  progress  we  make  in  a 
foreign  language  as  soon  as  we  arrive  in  the  country  where  it 
is  spoken,  is  simply  that  we  continually  hear  the  same  forms,  the 
same  words,  the  same  combinations  of  words.  If  German  is 
spoken  in  the  class-room,  every  sentence  —  whether  spoken  or 
read  —  will  be  a  drill  in  the  noun  and  adjective  declensions, 
in  the  conjugation,  in  the  government  of  prepositions,  and  in 
the  elementary  rules  for  arrangement.  We  suppose,  of  course, 
that  the  teacher  is  thorough,  and  that  no  faulty  answer  is  ever 
allowed  to  pass. 

The  difficulty  about  reading  German  at  sight  is  not  that  the 
necessary  vocabulary  is  so  large,  but  that  the  student  is  com- 
monly brought  face  to  face  at  once  with  too  many  of  the  rarer 
words,  and  in  his  bewilderment  he  has  no  opportunity  to  become 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  most  common  ones.  And 
any  uncertainty  as  to  the  meaning  of  these  common  words 


180  ON  THE  USE  OF  THE 

which  the  student  ought  to  know,  and  might  know,  will  ma- 
terially lessen  his  capacity  for  correctly  guessing  the  meaning 
of  a  rarer  word  occurring  in  the  same  passage.  An  examina- 
tion of  ten  pages  of  Goethe's  prose  chosen  at  random  shows 
that  the  articles,  pronouns,  prepositions,  conjunctions,  auxil- 
iaries, and  the  most  common  adverbs  constitute  no  less  than 
fifty-eight  per  cent  of  his  vocabulary.  If  the  student  has 
these  at  his  fingers'  ends,  together  with  a  reasonable  number 
of  nouns  and  adjectives,  and  the  strong  and  most  important 
weak  and  irregular  verbs,  he  will  have  an  excellent  hold  on  the 
vocabulary  of  the  language ;  and  certainly  a  method  like  the 
one  described  will  keep  these  fundamental  terms  sounding  in 
his  ears  until  he  is  as  familiar  with  them  as  with  their  English 
equivalents. 

One  of  the  most  fatal  mistakes  that  teachers  of  modern 
languages  in  colleges  are  liable  to  make  is  to  hurry  their 
classes  too  much.  The  time  allotted  to  their  work  is  short 
and  their  aims  are  high ;  no  wonder,  they  often  give  their  stu- 
dents too  difficult  work.  It  would  be  much  better  for  the 
student  never  to  attempt  to  read  a  German  classic  in  the  origi- 
nal, than  to  slur  over  the  elements  of  German,  and  then  spell 
out  or  guess  at  Goethe's  or  Lessing's  thoughts,  or  take  frequent 
tumbles  from  the  noble  flights  of  Schiller's  language  into  the 
regions  of  the  adjective  declension.  German  classics  are  not 
proper  reading-material  for  the  first  year.  "  It  is  not  know- 
ing German  to  be  able  to  work  one's  way  through  a  foot-note 
and  just  miss  the  point  from  not  knowing  the  force  of  a  modal 
auxiliary."  The  use  of  German  in  the  class-room  will  be 
found  a  wholesome  corrective  of  this  evil.  The  teacher, 
being  obliged  to  make  himself  understood  by  his  students, 
will  not  present  to  them  material  for  which  they  are  as  yet 
unprepared. 

Again,  in  this  way,  and  only  in  this  way,  does  the  student 
become  acquainted  with  the  spoken  language.  This  is  a  matter 
of  no  mean  importance,  and  is  well  worth  careful  considera- 


FOREIGN  LANGUAGE  IN   THE   CLASS-ROOM.  181 

tion  ;  but  only  a  few  points  can  be  mentioned  here.  The  lit- 
erary language  is  to  a  certain  extent  a  dead  language ;  the 
spoken  language,  on  the  other  hand,  exhibits  life,  action,  lin- 
guistic tendencies.  We  believe  in  teaching  in  college  the  prin- 
ciples of  linguistic  development,  and  these  principles  are  better 
illustrated  by  the  spoken  language  than  by  the  language  of 
literature.  Moreover,  a  knowledge  of  the  every-day  speech  of 
a  people  is  necessary  for  the  intelligent  appreciation  of  its 
literature.  The  character  of  literary  productions,  of  authors, 
of  schools  of  poetry,  of  entire  periods  of  literature,  is  often 
defined  by  their  relation  to  the  every-day  speech  of  the  people. 
How,  then,  can  we  make  students  appreciate  the  character  of 
the  works  they  are  reading  unless  we  give  them  the  standard 
of  the  every-day  speech  to  measure  by  ?  Can  any  one  appre- 
ciate the  simple  grandeur  of  the  language  of  the  English 
Bible,  or  the  loftiness  of  that  of  Milton,  who  does  not  know 
how  English-speaking  people  commonly  express  themselves  ? 
No  one  particular  work,  however  perfect  it  may  be,  can  ad- 
equately reflect  the  character  of  a  language  or  a  literature ;  on 
the  contrary,  there  is  nothing  more  characteristic  of  a  language 
than  the  diversity  of  uses  to  which  it  can  be  put.  The  every- 
day speech  of  the  people  seems  to  be  the  best  starting-point 
for  the  study  of  the  various  languages  within  a  language,  and 
the  most  natural  standard  of  comparison. 

As  we  have  already  said,  it  would  be  impossible  to  use 
German  exclusively  in  very  large  first  or  second  year 
classes.  But  even  in  classes  of  forty  or  fifty  a  slight  be- 
ginning may  be  made.  The  least  that  may  be  expected 
from  the  very  beginning  is  that  no  sentence  shall  ever  be 
translated  until  the  German  has  been  read  aloud.  This 
reading  of  the  text,  so  far  from  delaying  rapid  progress,  as 
some  teachers  think,  results  ultimately  in  a  great  gain  of 
time.  It  is  the  only  way  students  can  ever  be  taught  to  com- 
prehend the  construction  and  meaning  of  a  sentence  at  the 
first  glance,   without  translation  into  English.     A  compli- 


182  ON  THE  USE  OF  THE 

cated  construction  often  becomes  clear  as  soon  as  the  teacher 
reads  the  sentence  aloud  with  some  expression.  A  great 
amount  of  time  is  wasted  in  translating  matter  that  really 
offers  no  serious  difficulties  and  might  be  readily  understood 
on  the  first  careful  reading  of  the  text.  Systematic  efforts  in 
this  direction  from  the  very  first,  coupled  with  a  careful 
selection  of  sufficiently  easy  reading-material,  will  generally 
enable  the  teacher  to  dispense  with  translation  to  some  ex- 
tent, even  in  classes  too  large  to  make  any  extensive  use  of 
German  for  grammaticaland  lexicological  explanations  possible. 
Moreover,  the  reading  aloud  of  German  is  necessary  to  make 
the  student  familiar  with  the  sound  and  rhythm  of  the  lan- 
guage, a  familiarity  that  he  must  possess,  if  he  would  ever 
understand  lyric  and  dramatic  poetry.  All  this  would  seem 
to  go  without  saying ;  yet  the  writer  knows  of  institutions 
where,  a  few  years  ago,  it  was  the  custom  to  translate  Heine's 
poems  into  English,  while  the  German  text  was  never  read. 
Surely,  students  that  cannot  understand  Heine's  lyrics  after 
the  simple  reading  of  the  text,  and  a  few  explanations,  —  either 
in  German  or  in  English,  as  the  teacher  may  deem  best,  —  are 
not  yet  ready  to  read  Heine. 

Under  ordinarily  favorable  circumstances  the  student  should, 
by  the  beginning  of  the  third  year,  have  become  so  familiar 
with  the  sound  of  the  language  and  the  ordinary  vocabu- 
lary, that  he  may  begin  to  read  the  easier  classics  without 
translating  more  than  occasional  passages  of  exceptional 
difficulty.  The  time  in  class  may  then  be  devoted  to  inter- 
pretation in  German,  and  to  the  discussion  of  the  poet's 
life  and  works,  likewise  in  German.  We  do  not  advocate 
that  the  pupils  should  always  speak  German  ;  under  ordi- 
nary circumstances  they  cannot  have  had  practice  enough  to 
do  this  without  serious  loss  of  time.  But  the  teacher  should, 
as  a  rule,  speak  German.  Experience  at  Harvard  and  else- 
where shows  that  where  systematic  efforts  in  this  direction 
are  made,  the  results  have  been  good.    Toward  the  end  of  the 


FOREIGN   LANGUAGE  IN   THE  CLASS-ROOM.         183 

year  there  will  be  very  few  things  connected  with  an  outline- 
study  of  the  classic  writers  of  the  eighteenth  century  that  the 
teacher  cannot  present  to  his  students  in  German.  The  advan- 
tages are  apparent.  The  greater  part  of  the  time  that  is  com- 
monly devoted  to  translation  becomes  available  either  for 
additional  reading,  or  for  the  discussion  of  things  for  which 
there  is  usually  no  time,  while  the  constant  use  of  the  lan- 
guage in  the  class-room  may  very  largely  take  the  place  of 
special  exercises  in  grammar  and  composition.  Occasional 
examinations,  conducted  at  least  partially  in  English,  amply 
suffice  to  control  the  progress  of  every  member  of  the  class 
and  enable  the  teacher  to  adapt  his  method  of  treating  the 
subject  to  the  capacity  and  needs  of  his  students. 

Much  has  been  said  and  written  about  the  disciplinary 
value  of  the  study  of  modern  languages,  and  about  the  neces- 
sity of  using  certain  methods  of  instruction  to  insure  these 
disciplinary  advantages.  It  seems  to  us  that  here  there  is 
danger  of  mistaking  the  means  for  the  end.  To  regard  a  cer- 
tain method  of  acquiring  the  new  language  rather  than  its 
possession  as  insuring  literary  culture  and  scholarship,  seems 
to  us  a  fundamental  mistake,  and  one  that  cannot  help  exer- 
cising a  harmful  influence  on  this  important  branch  of  instruc- 
tion. To  our  mind,  the  man  that  knows  three  languages 
thoroughly  is  an  educated  man  to  the  extent  to  which  the 
study  of  three  languages  can  make  him  such,  whatever  method 
he  may  have  pursued  in  their  acquisition.  Surely  there  is  no 
special  virtue  in  learning  paradigms  or  rules  of  syntax,  except 
as  they  help  us  to  understand  and  use  the  language,  or  as  a 
means  of  cultivating  the  memory ;  and  for  this  latter  purpose, 
selections  from  the  best  prose  and  poetry  would  seem  to  have 
the  advantage  in  point  of  greater  intrinsic  value.  On  the 
other  hand,  surely  no  one  will  deny  that  an  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  several  languages,  such  as  enables  its  possessor 
to  read  Goethe  and  Victor  Hugo  intelligently,  and  to  dis* 
tinguish  between  the  styles  of  different  authors  and  the  Ian- 


184  ON   THE  USE  OF  THE 

guage  of  different  periods,  is  evidence  of  high  culture.  It 
should  not  be  supposed  that  such  a  knowledge  can  ever  be  ac- 
quired without  the  benefit  of  considerable  mental  discipline. 
Under  very  favorable  circumstances,  as  when  a  person  has  ac- 
quired the  elements  of  the  foreign  language  when  very  young, 
and  has  had  constant  opportunity  to  hear  and  speak  it,  the  pro- 
cess may  have  been  a  slow  one  and  the  discipline  may  not  at 
any  time  have  been  very  severe,  but  the  aggregate  effect  must 
be  the  same ;  just  as  a  person  that  has  always  lived  an  active 
out-door  life  is  apt  to  have  a  sound  and  well-trained  body,  with- 
out having  ever  gone  through  a  regular  course  of  "  developing 
exercises."  The  question  which  the  world  puts  to  the  student 
is  not  whether  the  method  by  which  he  learned  German  was 
productive  of  mental  discipline,  but  whether  he  knows  Ger- 
man. Nor  is  this  way  of  putting  the  question  confined  to 
those  intensely  practical  people  that  have  no  sympathy  with  the 
higher  objects  of  liberal  studies.  A  person  that  should  claim 
to  be  permeated  with  the  spirit  of  Greek  culture,  but  could  not 
read  Homer  or  tell  who  Pericles  was,  would  be  ridiculed  every- 
where, and  justly  so.  All  discussions  about  lending  any 
special  disciplinary  value  to  the  study  of  modern  languages 
by  the  use  of  certain  methods  of  instruction  seem  to  us  sheer 
waste  of  time.  Let  us  teach  the  student  German  and  French, 
and  not  trouble  ourselves  about  mental  discipline ;  that  will 
come  of  itself.  If  we  give  the  student  a  sound,  well-rounded 
knowledge  of  these  languages,  his  faculties  will  of  necessity 
be  improved,  and  he  will  be  better  equipped  for  any  profession 
he  may  afterward  enter.  The  only  question  for  us  to  consider 
is  how  to  use  the  very  limited  time  to  the  best  advantage,  so 
that  we  may  take  the  student  to  the  farthest  possible  point  on 
the  road  toward  a  mastery  of  the  tongue  we  profess  to  teach. 

A  word,  however,  should  be  added  about  the  special  claim 
so  commonly  made  that  the  greatest  disciplinary  advantages  of 
language-study  are  after  all  to  be  obtained  from  the  exercise 
of  translating  from  one  language  into  another,  and  especially 


FOREIGN   LANGUAGE  IN   THE  CLASS-ROOM.         185 

from  a  foreign  language  into  the  student's  vernacular.  It  has 
been  said  that  every  study,  whether  of  Greek,  mathematics, 
history,  biology,  or  German  should  also  be  an  exercise  in 
English.  We  are  prepared  to  grant  this,  but  only  in  one  sense. 
As  far  as  the  English  language  is  used  in  the  class-room,  or  in 
any  exercise  connected  with  the  work  in  hand,  it  should  be 
good  and  vigorous  English.  But  the  chief  duty  of  the 
teacher  of  German  is,  after  all,  to  teach  German,  not  English. 
If  he  can  incidentally  contribute  to  the  student's  knowledge 
of  English,  it  is  clearly  within  his  function  to  do  so;  but 
he  will  render  English  studies  a  greater  service  if  he  im- 
proves his  instruction  in  German  in  such  a  manner  that 
the  student  learns  more  in  a  given  time  and  gains  more 
time  for  special  work  in  English.  Nor  can  the  exercise  of 
translating  from  German  into  English  be  regarded  as  espe- 
cially useful  in  the  acquisition  of  a  good  English  style.  On 
the  contrary,  for  the  same  reasons  for  which  we  have  above 
recommended  the  discontinuance  of  translation  into  German 
wherever  the  conditions  render  a  better  method  possible,  we 
must  also  regard  the  exercise  of  translating  from  German  or 
any  other  foreign  language  into  English  as  harmful  rather 
than  useful  as  far  as  the  acquisition  of  a  good  English  style 
is  concerned ;  harmful  at  least  if  carried  to  such  an  extent  as 
is  ordinarily  the  case.  The  fact  that  there  are  so  few  really 
good  translations  in  any  language  is  abundant  proof  that 
translating  is  an  exceedingly  difficult  thing,  far  too  difficult 
for  the  ordinary  student  —  or  teacher,  for  that  matter  —  to 
attempt,  except  in  very  small  amounts  and  with  very  great  care. 
Frequent  exercises  in  writing  brief  abstracts,  in  the  student's 
own  language,  without  the  book  before  him,  would  seem  to 
us  much  more  useful  in  forming  a  good  and  vigorous  English 
style,  than  a  large  amount  of  indifferent  translating. 


COMMON   SENSE  IN   TEACHING   MODERN 
LANGUAGES. 

BY   MR.    E.    H.    BABBITT,    COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY. 

If  I  were  to  follow  the  plan  of  the  old-time  sermon-makers, 
I  should  naturally  speak  on  this  subject  under  three  heads  : 
(1)  Common  Sense,  (2)  Teaching,  and  (3)  Modern  Languages. 
Under  the  first  head,  however,  nobody  can  tell  another  person 
anything,  and  under  the  second  it  is  not  likely  that  I  can  tell 
you  a  great  deal.  Still,  before  I  begin  to  talk  on  the  subject 
about  which  I  hope  I  can  tell  you  something,  I  wish  to  touch 
upon  the  other  two,  in  order  to  make  clear  my  starting-point. 

A  few  years  ago  I  got  from  a  man  who  seems  to  have  been 
more  popular  then  than  now,  a  sort  of  formula  which  has 
been  a  very  useful  part  of  my  mental  furniture  ever  since,  and 
expresses  as  well  as  anything  my  conception  of  what  common 
sense  means.  I  refer  to  the  famous  sentence,  "  It  is  a  condi- 
tion and  not  a  theory  which  confronts  us."  In  ninety-nine 
out  of  a  hundred  of  the  problems  of  actual  life,  it  is  a  condi- 
tion and  not  a  theory  which  confronts  us ;  and  the  man  who 
has  common  sense  is  the  man  who  is  very  sparing  of  theories 
till  he  is  sure  of  all  the  conditions,  and  then  applies  to  the 
conditions,  from  all  the  theories  he  has  on  the  subject,  those 
which  rest  on  the  most  general  and  most  nearly  axiomatic 
principles. 

Every  act  of  human  effort  has  for  its  object  the  accomplish- 
ment of  some  result  by  the  application  of  certain  means  under 
certain  conditions.  A  state  of  things  as  it  exists  before  the 
act  is  to  be  changed  into  one  more  desirable.    He  is  most  suc- 

iae 


TEACHING  MODERN   LANGUAGES.  187 

cessful  who  has  the  clearest  understanding  of  what  the  exist- 
ing state  of  things  is,  and  of  the  state  of  things  to  be  produced 
by  the  change,  and  who  has  at  his  command  all  the  means 
which  could  be  used  to  produce  the  desired  result,  and  under- 
stands their  relations,  and  has  common  sense  to  apply  them 
in  the  right  way  and  at  the  right  time. 

Now,  as  we  turn  to  teaching,  I  mean  as  the  intellectual  pro- 
cess of  giving  instruction,  we  can  particularize  our  general 
formula  somewhat  as  follows  :  Given  the  sum  total  of  the 
pupil's  knowledge  already  in  store,  his  powers  to  perceive 
and  to  do,  his  tendencies  and  habits ;  required  the  possession 
by  the  pupil  of  some  specific  additional  knowledge  or  power ; 
how  shall  we  place  before  the  mind  of  the  pupil,  in  the  form 
most  readily  assimilated,  the  matter  which  he  must  add  in 
order  to  acquire  what  he  wants  ? 

Good  teaching  is  simply  common  sense  applied  to  this  prob- 
lem. This  means  :  Be  sure  you  know  what  is  in  your  pupil's 
mind,  and  just  what  more  you  wish  him  to  know  or  be  able  to 
do,  and  then  proceed  step  by  step,  in  the  most  natural  manner, 
along  the  lines  of  least  resistance,  to  get  his  mind  to  work  to 
acquire  the  desired  facts  or  habits. 

This  problem,  of  course,  varies  enormously  with  the  age 
and  intellectual  advancement  of  the  pupil.  In  childhood  we 
have  to  deal  with  a  retentive  memory  and  the  ability  to 
acquire  by  unconscious  imitation,  without  much  exercise  of 
the  reasoning  faculty.  From  the  eve  of  this  period  until 
maturity  the  reason  develops  more  and  more,  and  direct  mem- 
ory and  the  imitative  faculty  go  over  into  memory  by  associa- 
tion and  conscious  attention  to  the  processes  of  any  art  or 
ability  to  be  acquired.  We  have  thus  two  fairly  distinct 
periods  in  which  the  general  plan  of  instruction  must  be  cor- 
respondingly distinct.  It  would  be  absurd  to  attempt  to  make 
the  child  apply  reasoning  powers  which  he  possesses  only  in 
a  very  rudimentary  form,  at  the  expense  of  the  acquisition  of 
facts  which  is  easy,  natural,  and  attractive  to  him.     On  the 


188  COMMON   SENSE  IN 

other  hand,  it  is  not  only  absurd,  but  highly  dangerous  for  a 
sound  mental  training,  to  overlook  the  unfolding  reasoning 
faculty,  and  go  on  cramming  the  mind  with  uncorrelated  facts 
after  it  is  capable  of  seeing  the  relations  of  things.  The  aver- 
age human  being  is  none  too  logical  as  it  is ;  and  after  all  it  is 
worth  more  to  be  able  to  reason  correctly  from  a  few  facts, 
than  to  know  all  the  facts  about  a  given  matter  without  being 
able  to  interpret  them.  The  point  cannot  be  too  strongly 
emphasized,  that  the  main  work  of  the  educator  who  is  con- 
cerned with  the  adolescent  mind,  the  educator  whose  province 
is  to  give  what  is  variously  called  a  secondary,  collegiate,  or 
liberal  education,  is  to  bring  out  the  reasoning  faculty,  to 
train  the  mind  to  think  clearly  and  logically  ;  no  other  power 
of  the  mind  is  of  much  use  to  a  man  without  this. 

This  work  of  liberal  education,  or  college  work,  which  has 
the  training  of  the  mind  for  its  central  point,  as  distinct  on 
the  one  hand  from  primary  school  work,  which  deals  chiefly 
in  facts,  and  on  the  other  hand  from  professional  or  technical 
training,  is,  in  this  country,  divided  between  the  colleges  and 
the  schools  of  the  high  school  or  preparatory  school  grade, 
such  as  are  represented  by  this  Association.  In  speaking  now 
about  modern  language  teaching,  I  wish  to  confine  my  atten- 
tion chiefly  to  the  work  in  these  schools,  and  its  relation  to 
the  continuation  of  the  subject  in  the  college.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  modern  language  teaching  outside  of  these 
schools  and  colleges  which  is  entirely  legitimate  and  useful, 
but  needs  to  be  discussed  here  only  in  order  to  call  your 
attention  to  some  perfectly  obvious  distinctions  which  need  to 
be  kept  in  mind  if  we  are  to  use  common  sense  in  modern 
language  work.  The  conditions  of  work  in  modern  language 
teaching  vary  more  than  perhaps  those  of  any  other  subject; 
and  there  is  a  most  exasperating  ignorance  of  these  conditions 
on  the  part  of  the  non-pedagogical  public,  which  extends  to 
many  patrons  and  trustees  of  our  educational  institutions, 
sometimes  even  to  their  managers,  in  such  a  way  as  to  throw 


TEACHING  MODERN  LANGUAGES.  189 

discredit  on  modern  language  teaching,  and  make  it  very 
uphill  work  to  reach  the  highest  efficiency  in  it.  The  most 
prevalent  and  pernicious  error  is  a  confusion  of  the  different 
purposes  of  modern  language  teaching.  A  modern  language 
may  be  used  as  the  medium  of  the  highest  and  most  whole- 
some mental  discipline,  or  as  the  key  to  the  broadest  culture 
and  some  of  the  most  interesting  chapters  of  human  thought. 
In  this  use  it  ranks  with  the  other  "humanities,"  —  the  classic 
languages,  history,  and  similar  subjects.  A  modern  language 
may  also  be  treated  -simply  as  a  tool  —  something  whose  use 
enables  one  to  obtain  information  more  nearly  at  first  hand,  or 
to  communicate  with  people  who  could  not  be  reached  with- 
out it.  In  this  use  it  may  be  compared  with  practical  arith- 
metic, book-keeping,  or  stenography.  It  may  be  studied  with 
an  even  less  serious  purpose  —  as  a  mere  accomplishment, 
like  piano-playing  or  amateur  painting.  A  modern  language 
may  be  taught  with  either  of  these  ends  in  view  to  pupils  of 
any  age,  from  the  youngest  child  to  the  adult.  Furthermore, 
there  are  various  direct  results  and  various  means  of  reach- 
ing them  which  are  of  varying  worth,  according  to  the  ulti- 
mate end  to  be  attained,  and  according  to  the  age  and  mental 
development  of  the  pupil. 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  almost  hopeless  confusion  on  the 
subject  exists  in  the  lay  mind,  and  perhaps  small  wonder  that 
this  confusion  extends  even  among  educators  to  quarters 
where  it  is,  to  say  the  least,  unexpected. 

There  are  four  lines  of  attainment  to  be  distinguished  in 
the  immediate  objects  of  the  study  of  a  modern  language,  — 
four  arts,  so  to  speak,  through  which  must  come  all  the  ulti- 
mate gains  in  the  way  of  practical  advantages  or  of  mental 
training  which  are  sought.  These  four  arts  or  abilities  are  : 
To  speak  the  language,  to  understand  it  when  spoken,  to  read 
it,  and  to  write  it.  A  person  can  acquire  any  one  of  these 
arts  without  necessarily  possessing  the  others  ;  though  the  first 
two,  which  depend  upon  the  education  of  the  ear,  and  the  last 


190  COMMON  SENSE  IN 

two,  which  depend  upon  that  of  the  eye,  go  more  or  less  to- 
gether, and  contrast  thus  in  pairs  according  to  the  sense  per- 
ceptions involved.  The  idea  of  a  person  who  speaks  and 
understands  a  language  without  being  able  to  read  or  write 
that  language  or  any  other  is  familiar  enough ;  and  there  are 
very  many  persons  who  can  read  a  language  well  enough  for 
all  practical  purposes  without  being  able  to  understand  the 
simplest  sentence  spoken  in  it,  or  to  speak  or  even  write  it 
with  any  correctness. 

There  are  probably  very  many  more  people  who  study  a 
modern  language  for  the  ability  to  speak  it  than  for  any  other 
purpose.  Of  these,  again,  the  great  majority  have  no  very 
serious  purpose,  but  take  French  or  German  lessons  as  they 
do  piano  lessons,  to  acquire  what  they  consider  a  pleasing 
accomplishment.  Others  have  a  practical  end  in  view  ;  they 
are  going  abroad,  or  they  may  come  into  business  relations 
with  people  who  speak  the  language  they  are  studying.  Now, 
speaking  a  language  is  an  empirical  art,  quite  comparable  to 
playing  a  musical  instrument  or  to  writing  shorthand.  The 
acquisition  of  the  art  implies  principally  the  training  of  cer- 
tain sets  of  muscles  to  obey  certain  impulses  from  the  brain. 
To  have  the  muscles  trained  to  pronounce  and  use  the  words 
of  more  than  one  language  is  quite  parallel  to  being  able  to 
play  the  same  tune  on  more  than  one  instrument,  or  to  write 
a  sentence  both  in  shorthand  and  in  common  script.  I  regard 
all  these  little  knacks  as  perfectly  healthy  and  legitimate 
occupations  for  the  mind,  and  desirable  in  so  far  as  they  give 
their  possessor  an  additional  source  of  pleasure  or  profit;  and 
if  any  of  my  children  want  to  speak  French  or  German,  or 
write  shorthand,  or  play  the  banjo,  I  shall  certainly  encourage 
them,  so  far  as  the  accomplishment  in  question  does  not  inter- 
fere with  more  serious  pursuits ;  and,  if  I  possess  any  of  the 
accomplishments  myself,  I  will  cheerfully  teach  them  and 
practise  with  them  whenever  I  have  time. 

Now,  this  practical  accomplishment  of  speaking  a  language 


TEACHING  MODERN   LANGUAGES.  191 

ean,  like  all  such  practical  accomplishments,  best  be  acquired 
by  a  great  amount  of  practice  in  imitation  of  good  models. 
An  ideal  teacher  to  impart  this  accomplishment  is  accordingly 
a  person  whose  own  speech  is  beyond  question  as  a  model, 
who  has  patience  and  some  tact  in  giving  individual  instruc- 
tion, and  whose  time  is  not  too  valuable  to  be  employed  a 
great  many  hours  to  accomplish  the  required  result.  These 
qualities  are  generally  found  together  in  our  country  in  per- 
sons whose  native  tongue  is  the  one  to  be  taught ;  and  so  we 
find  a  large  number  of  persons,  almost  without  exception  of 
foreign  birth,  engaged  in  this  work.  The  work  is  as  legitimate 
and  useful  as  that  gf  a  teacher  of  music  or  stenography ;  and 
among  those  engaged  in  it  are  very  many  worthy  and  respect- 
able persons,  who  have  that  high  opinion  of  the  importance  of 
their  work  which  every  one  must  have  in  order  to  succeed. 
There  are  even  many  who  for  one  reason  or  another  have 
better  education  and  ability  than  is  necessary  for  the  success- 
ful teaching  of  such  an  art,  but  are  obliged  to  turn  to  this 
work  and  do  it  for  the  small  compensation  which  is  sufficient 
to  pay  the  rather  low-priced  talent  which  is  quite  adequate  for 
the  work,  and  thus  determines  the  standard  of  compensation. 
There  is  no  good  English  word  to  distinguish  this  class  of  per- 
sons. The  Germans  have  the  word  Sprachmeister,  which  ex- 
presses pretty  well  the  idea  of  something  parallel  to  a  music-, 
drawing-,  or  dancing-master,  and  has  been  used  to  some  extent 
to  express  the  idea  in  English.  Like  the  others  referred  to, 
the  Sprachmeister  lives  by  the  practice  of  an  art,  and  is  not, 
in  virtue  of  his  calling,  an  educator  by  profession  in  the  sense 
that  we  are.  Still,  as  I  said  just  now,  many  of  them  are 
really  very  intelligent  persons,  and  have  developed  their  work 
on  sound  pedagogical  principles. 

These  lead  logically,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  which 
fall  within  the  province  of  the  Sprachmeister,  to  what  is  best 
known  as  the  "natural  method,"  about  which  I  shall  speak 
later.     Various    shades   of   this   method,   which   I   take   for 


192  COMMON   SENSE  IN 

granted  is  familiar  to  most  of  you,  have  been  used  with  great 
success  by  men  who  are  thoroughly  competent  in  their  line,  and 
cannot  in  any  way  be  called  quacks.  But  their  success  has 
opened  a  profitable  field  to  very  many  who  cannot  be  called 
anything  else,  who  find  profit  in  taking  advantage  of  the  very 
loose  ideas  which  prevail  concerning  the  real  usefulness  and 
the  real  difficulty  of  speaking  a  foreign  language,  to  get  pu- 
pils and  sell  text-books  on  the  strength  of  some  particular 
"  method "  which  promises  to  do  what  every  experienced 
teacher  knows  is  impossible.  And  even  the  best  of  the 
Sprachmeister  are  prone,  like  all  artists,  to  claim  for  their  art 
an  exaggerated  importance,  and  exalt  the  speaking  knowledge 
of  a  language  to  a  position  in  the  work  of  education  which  in 
no  way  belongs  to  it.  The  conservative  educators  generally 
pay  little  attention  to  all  the  noise  made  by  the  various 
schools  of  Sprachmeister,  but  occasionally  one  of  them  finds 
it  worth  while  to  bring  forward  something  in  refutation  of 
their  extravagance.  One  of  the  best  things  of  the  kind  is  an 
article  by  Professor  Calvin  Thomas,  which  is  largely  devoted 
to  the  point  which  I  wish  to  bring  forward  next.1 

Professor  Thomas  implies  that  a  reading  knowledge  of  a  lan- 
guage is  the  key  to  higher  things  than  a  speaking  knowledge, 
but  does  not  think  it  worth  while,  apparently,  to  argue  the 
point,  which  he  assumes  as  self-evident.  I  doubt  if  it  is  self- 
evident  to  the  lay  mind,  and  I  have  even  got  some  new  light 
on  the  matter  recently  myself  from  an  investigation  regarding 
the  vocabulary  possessed  by  various  individuals.  It  has  be- 
come a  sort  of  tradition  that  a  child  or  illiterate  person  has  only 
a  few  hundred  words  —  some  have  it  as  low  as  two  hundred 
or  three  hundred.  I  tried  to  get  at  the  vocabulary  of  adults, 
and  make  experiments,  chiefly  with  my  students,  to  see  how 
many  English  words  each  knew.  We  know  that  the  Bible 
contains  about  eight  thousand  words,  and  that  Shakespeare 
used  not  more  than  eighteen  thousand.     The  "  International 

1  See  page  11. 


TEACHING   MODERN   LANGUAGES.  193 

Dictionary  "  contains  abont  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand. 
My  plan  was  to  take  a  considerable  number  of  pages  from  the 
dictionary  at  random,  count  the  number  of  words  on  those 
pages  which  the  subject  of  the  experiment  could  define  with- 
out any  context,  and  work  out  a  proportion  to  get  an  approxi- 
mation of  the  entire  number  of  words  in  the  dictionary  known. 
The  results  were  surprising  for  two  reasons.  In  the  size  of  the 
vocabulary  of  such  students,  the  outside  variations  were  less 
than  twenty  per  cent,  and  their  vocabulary  was  much  larger 
than  I  had  expected  to  find.  The  majority  reported  a  little 
below  sixty  thousand  words.  Now,  it  may  be  that  some  edu- 
cated men  in  modern  days  use  as  many  words  as  Shakespeare 
in  expressing  their  thoughts,  but  probably  very  few  use 
anything  like  as  many.  The  fact  brought  out  by  my  experi- 
ments means,  then,  that  every  educated  person  carries  a  read- 
ing vocabulary  of  several  times  the  number  of  words  he  uses 
in  speaking.  The  same  thing  is  undoubtedly  true  of  people 
of  an  education  inferior  to  that  of  college  students  —  the  ordi- 
nary middle-class  people,  whose  range  of,  reading,  as  well  as  of 
conversation,  does  not  extend  so  far,  but  who,  nevertheless, 
do  read  about  many  subjects  which  they  do  not  often  talk 
about. 

The  complexity  of  modern  life  requires  that  every  one  who 
reads  at  all  shall  be  able  to  read  of  things  which  do  not  con- 
cern his  own  daily  life.  But  no  one  speaks  very  fluently 
about  things  which  do  not  come  into  his  daily  life.  (We 
teachers,  whose  own  daily  activity  requires  us  to  have  a  ready 
command  of  language  for  many  subjects,  often  fail  to  realize 
this  till  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  an  after-dinner 
speech  or  an  oral  examination.) 

Now,  in  these  days  of  the  printing-press,  practically  every 
one  enters  all  the  higher  fields  of  thought,  at  least  for  any 
purpose  of  serious  study,  through  reading;  and  his  ability  to 
talk  on  such  a  subject  comes  after  he  has  become  familiar 
with  it  in  print.     (How  many  of  us  in  writing  for  public 


194  COMMON   SENSE   IN 

delivery  have  had  to  consult  the  dictionary  for  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  some  word  which  we  know  in  print,  which  expresses 
an  idea  that  we  need  to  use,  but  which  we  have  never  heard 
spoken ! ) 

Modern  education  is  acquired  very  largely,  and  I  think  in 
an  increasing  degree,  through  the  eye  ;  and  the  training  of  the 
eye  is  entitled  to  the  first  consideration.  You  know  that  mod- 
ern psychology  shows  that  some  individuals  do  their  thinking 
largely  or  entirely  in  terms  of  one  set  of  sense-impressions, 
and  some  in  those  of  another.  This  is  a  fact  of  the  greatest 
importance  in  the  work  of  education,  and  has  not  had  suffi- 
cient consideration  in  the  teaching  of  modern  languages,  where 
it  obviously  has  very  far-reaching  effects.  For  if  a  pronounced 
"  visualizer "  —  a  person  who  records  and  reproduces  all 
thoughts  as  sight-impressions  —  tries  to  work  with  methods 
that  are  better  adapted  to  a  person  who  records  by  sound- 
impressions,  or  vice  versa,  there  may  be  a  great  waste  of  en- 
ergy. Take  a  very  common  case.  A  "  visualizer  "  who  has 
had  the  usual  amount  of  practice  in  silent  reading  can  get 
through  a  printed  page  very  much  faster  than  the  words  can  be 
spoken,  while  a  person  who  depends  upon  sound-impressions 
cannot. 

I  have  found  a  few  persons  who  can  finish  a  book  of  two 
hundred  ordinary  pages  in  an  hour,  and  give  a  satisfactory  ac- 
count of  its  contents.  If  such  a  person  be  compelled  to  learn 
languages  through  the  ear,  there  is  a  loss  of  this  natural 
advantage,  which  might  just  as  well  be  used.  Now,  our  psy- 
chologists have  found  that  the  great  majority  of  Americans 
are  "  visualizers."  *  And  I  incline  to  believe  that  the  visual 
habit  is  that  which  gives  the  most  satisfactory  means  of  com- 
munication with  the  external  world,  and  the  readiest  and  best 
available   forms  of  thought,  that   therefore  the  increase   of 

1  Germans  seem  to  have  a  much  larger  proportion  among  them  of  those  who 
remember  by  sound-impressions  ;  a  significant  fact  in  view  of  the  persistence  of  the 
German  Sprachmeister. 


TEACHING   MODERN   LANGUAGES.  195 

"  vituality  "  to  which  I  referred  above  is  in  no  way  unde* 
sirable,  and  that  methods  of  instruction  which  take  it  into 
account  are  better  adapted  to  American  schools  than  those 
which  do  not. 

Now,  if  a  man  finds  the  speaking  knowledge  of  his  own 
language,  which  he  has  acquired  in  his  own  daily  living  and 
thinking,  insufficient  for  all  the  demands  of  a  liberal  educa- 
tion, it  is  of  course  impossible  to  make  the  necessarily  inferior 
knowledge  of  a  foreign  language  which  can  be  acquired  in  a 
country  where  it  is  not  the  current  language,  come  anywhere 
near  meeting  those  demands.  I  am  sure  that  no  one  who 
looks  without  prejudice  upon  the  results  of  various  methods 
of  instruction  in  modern  languages  can  fail  to  observe  how 
the  apparently  brilliant  results  of  the  natural  method,  or  of 
any  method  which  makes  prominent  the  ability  to  speak, 
prove  barren  for  all  the  uses  of  a  really  liberal  education.  I 
would  apologize  for  dwelling  so  long  on  this  point  if  I  did  not 
feel  that  all  the  unsatisfactory  things  in  the  modern  language 
teaching  in  our  schools  and  colleges  grew  in  one  way  or  an- 
other out  of  it,  and  also  if  I  did  not  know  from  unmistakable 
evidence  that  this  fundamental  misconception  exists  more 
generally  and  in  higher  educational  circles  than  most  of  us 
would  at  first  believe. 

Granted,  then,  that  the  ability  to  speak  a  foreign  language 
cannot  be  imparted  by  school  instruction,  and  is  not  worth 
while  if  it  could  be,  and  that  the  ability  to  read  should  be  the 
chief  end  of  our  instruction,  how  shall  we  teach  our  pupils  to 
read  ?  Common  sense  would  seem  to  answer :  Let  them 
read,  as  fast  and  as  much  as  they  have  time  to  do  intelli- 
gently, and  don't  bother  them  with  any  side  issues.  I  believe 
that  for  the  great  majority  of  American  boys  in  our  schools  as 
they  are  this  is  literally  the  true  answer.  But  it  makes  all 
the  difference  in  the  world  at  what  age  your  pupils  begin  the 
study.  If  you  have  young  children  whose  imitative  faculty 
is  strong,  who  are  rapidly  adding  to  their  vocabulary  in  theii 


196  COMMON   SENSE  IN 

own  language  as  they  make  the  acquaintances  of  new  ideas, 
and  are  ready  to  take  any  word  given  them,  or  any  two  or 
three  words,  for  an  idea  when  they  first  meet  it,  who  cannot 
read  so  well  as  they  can  speak,  and  never  heard  of  grammar, 
then  the  common-sense  way  to  teach  them  is  to  use  at  first 
the  "  natural  method,"  pure  and  simple,  and  go  over  from 
that  to  more  "  bookish "  ways  as  the  mind  develops  into 
something  which  can  work  better  with  books.  The  vocabu- 
lary thus  acquired  is  useful  in  further  study  so  far  as  it  goes, 
and  any  facility  in  speaking  or  understanding  does  no  harm, 
and  may  do  some  good.  But  this  kind  of  thing  has  no  great 
educational  value  unless  it  is  followed  by  a  course  which  deals 
with  ideas  as  well  as  words.  Take  an  extreme  case  of  suc- 
cess with  this  method  —  a  child  of  ten  or  twelve  years,  of 
German  parents,  who  has  had  good  instruction  and  heard  as 
much  German  as  English,  and  really  uses  one  language  as 
well  as  the  other.  No  child  of  that  age  has  the  stock  of 
ideas,  in  whatever  language  he  expresses  them,  to  understand 
the  meaning  of  the  facts  of  literature  or  history  without 
further  study;  and  the  fact  that  he  can  express  in  two  lan- 
guages what  ideas  he  has  does  not  help  in  this  matter  at  all. 
Moreover,  this  is  a  field  for  private  instruction  or  special 
schools,  and  does  not  concern  the  usual  American  school  at  all. 
In  most  cases  our  pupils  do  not  begin  modern  languages  till 
they  are  past  the  age  mentioned. 

Very  many  do  not  begin  until  they  are  in  college  or  in  the 
last  year  or  two  of  their  preparatory  course.  The  question  of 
how  such  students  shall  learn  to  read  modern  languages  is  a 
different  one  from  that  last  mentioned,  and  it  is  practically 
the  only  one  which  our  instruction  has  to  take  into  account. 
Here  we  must  again  make  several  distinctions.  One  is  made 
by  the  ultimate  purpose  of  the  study.  Some  students  need  to 
read  German  solely  for  the  purpose  of  knowing  how  the  Ger- 
mans express  ideas  which  are  already  in  the  student's  mind, 
Or  are  to  come  in,  for  the  sake  of  the  idea.     Such  are  espe- 


TEACHING  MODERN  LANGUAGES.  197 

cially  scientific  students  or  advanced  students  in  various  fields 
who  need  to  use  German  text-books.  Others  wish  to  make 
the  acquaintance  of  German  life  and  thought  for  the  culture 
which  it  gives  them,  and  so  are  more  on  the  lookout  for  spe- 
cifically German  ideas,  and  consider  it  more  important  to  get 
in  touch  with  the  national  "  atmosphere  "  and  character.  The 
former  class  generally  greatly  outnumbers  the  latter  in  our 
schools,  and,  since  the  proximate  object  of  the  instruction  is 
much  the  same  in  both  cases,  has  the  greater  consideration  in 
shaping  the  exact  plan  of  instruction.  The  time  which  can 
be  given  to  the  study  is  generally  no  more  than  enough  to 
attain  a  satisfactory  reading  knowledge;  and  even  if  it  is, 
such  knowledge  is  the  first  thing  to  be  acquired. 

What  does  a  satisfactory  reading  knowledge  mean  ?  It 
does  not  mean  the  ability  to  recite  German  paradigms  never 
so  correctly  and  glibly,  or  to  render  a  German  sentence,  after 
a  long  session  with  the  dictionary,  into  a  more  or  less  correct 
English  equivalent ;  and  it  certainly  does  not  mean  the  ability 
to  recite  German  poems  from  memory,  or  to  recognize  at  sight 
or  by  sound  all  the  sentences  in  Ollendorf.  To  my  mind  it 
means  that  to  a  person  having  such  knowledge,  the  idea  em- 
bodied in  a  German  sentence  seen  for  the  first  time  shall 
reach  the  mind  at  once  as  directly  and  unceremoniously,  so  to 
speak,  as  possible.  It  is  not  necessary  that  the  idea  shall  go 
through  the  medium  of  the  English  language  to  reach  the 
understanding,  nor  is  it  necessary  for  the  usual  "  visualizing  " 
American  mind  that  it  shall  go  through  the  medium  of  the 
sound-symbols  for  the  same  idea. 

Let  us  dwell  a  moment  on  this  point.  The  sight-symbols 
on  the  printed  page  of  German  are  one  expression  for  an  idea. 
The  sound^symbols  heard  when  the  printed  sentence  is  read 
aloud  are  another.  The  English  words,  spoken  or  written,  for 
the  same  idea  are  another.  Finally,  if  the  idea  is  an  at  all 
familiar  one,  there  is  in  most  minds  a  sort  of  shorthand  ex- 
pression for  it  —  some  association  of  form,  or  color,  or  sound, 


198  COMMON   SENSE  IN 

or  tactile  sensation  which  stands  for  the  idea  and  spares  the 
trouble  of  putting  it  into  words.  That  is  why  people  can 
read  faster  than  the  words  can  be  spoken,  or  listen  to  a 
speaker  and  keep  up  an  independent  train  of  thought  without 
losing  what  he  says.  It  is  this,  the  ultimate  symbol  for  the 
idea,  which  we  wish  the  printed  sentence  to  suggest  imme- 
diately. 

The  sound-symbol  for  the  idea  is,  of  course,  what  every  indi- 
vidual begins  with  in  learning  his  own  language.  When  he 
learns  to  read  he  substitutes  sight-symbols,  which,  in  the  case 
of  people  who  read  a  great  deal,  become  not  merely  a  substi- 
tute for  the  sound-symbols,  but  another  equally  direct  and 
much  more  rapid  means  of  conveying  ideas  to  the  brain, 
through  a  different  sense-organ.  And  this,  as  we  have  seen 
above,  gives  access  to  a  much  more  comprehensive  range  of 
thought  than  the  spoken  language,  which  limits  a  person  for 
thought  material  to  the  ideas  of  the  people  he  meets. 

When  we  wish  to  acquire  this  same  ability  in  a  foreign  lan- 
guage, we  must  simply  give  ourselves  the  same  amount  of 
practice.  The  fact  of  being  able  to  use  one  language  in  this 
way  is,  however,  an  immense  advantage  in  learning  another. 
The  chief  task  is  to  get  the  vocabulary  of  the  new  language, 
taking  vocabulary  in  the  broad  sense  to  include  both  words 
and  idioms  as  expressions  of  ideas.  If  we  already  have  a 
familiar  way  of  expressing  the  idea,  we  can  use  that  to  bridge 
the  way  to  the  new  way.  That  is  what  we  do  when  we  go 
from  the  sound-symbol  to  the  sight-symbol  in  first  learning 
to  read  ;  and  we  must  either  make  the  same  transition  in  learn* 
ing  to  read  the  new  language,  or  go  from  the  expression  of  the 
idea  in  our  own  language  —  in  other  words,  translate.  Which 
of  these  shall  be  done  depends  on  the  conditions  of  the  prob- 
lem, —  the  purpose  of  the  study,  the  age  of  the  pupil,  the 
opportunities  for  practice,  and  finally,  and  perhaps  chiefly,  in 
the  many  cases  where  other  things  are  equal,  upon  the  person- 
ality of  the  teacher. 


TEACHING   MODERN  LANGUAGES.  199 

There  is  an  outcry  against  translation,  which  is  kindred 
with  the  din  of  the  "  natural  method  "  people,  and  it  is  based 
upon  a  kindred  misconception.  Like  the  "  natural  method  " 
people,  those  who  raise  this  cry  are  right  under  certain  con- 
ditions ;  but  those  conditions  are  not  found  where  they  believe 
them  to  be.  Their  assumption  is,  that  the  spoken  language  is 
the  language,  that  the  written  language  is  only  a  set  of  sym- 
bols for  the  spoken  language,  and  that  this  must  be  learned 
before  the  written  language  can  be  used.  This  was  entirely 
true  before  the  invention  of  printing,  and  probably  for  a  long 
time  after;  it  is  true  to-day  of  the  great  majority  of  the 
human  race  —  of  all  who  cannot  read  well,  and  probably  of  all 
persons  who  record  thought  by  sound-impressions  ;  but  for 
just  the  people  with  whom  we  are  concerned  —  the  modern 
Americans  who  have  reached  the  higher  schools  —  the  writ- 
ten or  rather  the  printed  language  is  not  a  set  of  symbols  for 
the  sounds  of  the  spoken  language,  but  for  the  ideas,  just  as 
directly  as  the  sounds  of  the  spoken  language  are.  It  should 
never  be  forgotten  that  such  a  student  can  acquire  an  ability 
to  read  a  foreign  language  perfectly  adequate  for  all  his  pur- 
poses without  ever  hearing  a  word  of  it  spoken,  and  that  in 
very  many  cases  it  makes  no  difference  to  him  whether  he 
ever  has  heard  it  or  not.  Such  a  student  will  almost  inevi- 
tably set  out  from  the  expression  of  the  idea  in  his  own  lan- 
guage ;  if  he  is  compelled  to  go  through  the  spoken  foreign 
language  to  the  written,  it  is  simply  a  more  roundabout  way. 
Whether  it  is  worth  while  to  take  such  a  way  is  always  a  case 
of  a  "  condition  and  not  a  theory."  The  ability  to  under- 
stand the  foreign  language  is  often  worth  something ;  though 
I  believe  it  is  generally  greatly  overestimated,  both  as  to  its 
intrinsic  importance  and  its  bearing  on  the  work  of  instruc- 
tion. I  find  that  it  can  be  brought  in  at  almost  any  stage 
along  with  translation,  that  it  helps  many  students  to  fix 
their  vocabulary,  and  is  a  pleasant  variation  in  the  class-room 
routine ;  but  that  if  it  is  used  so  much  as  to  encroach  upon 


200  COMMON   SENSE   IN 

translation  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  course,  many  students 
who  have  not  a  quick  ear  are  not  reached  at  all,  and  all  are 
liable  to  get  into  dilatory  habits. 

The  reason  is  not  hard  to  find.  Hold  a  student  responsible 
for  a  clear  understanding  of  the  ideas  expressed  by  the  Ger- 
man on  the  page,  and  he  can  work  cheerfully  with  grammar 
and  dictionary  as  many  hours  a  day  as  he  needs,  and  the  re- 
sult is  only  a  question  of  his  own  talent  and  industry.  But 
the  understanding  of  the  spoken  language  is  something  which, 
in  ordinary  cases,  he  can  practise  only  in  the  class-room ;  you 
cannot  test  his  progress  except  by  indirect  means,  and  he 
does  not  feel  that  he  has  anything  definite  to  do  when  he  is 
at  work  by  himself.  I  should  therefore  give  predominance  to 
translation  as  a  practical  matter  of  economy  in  teaching.  The 
other  method  calls  for  a  disproportionate  amount  of  work  on 
the  part  of  the  teacher,  unless  he  is  really  so  deficient  in 
English  as  to  make  translation  the  greater  task  to  him  ;  and, 
after  all,  it  is  what  the  pupils  do,  and  not  what  the  teacher 
does,  that  really  counts  in  their  progress.  In  general,  how- 
ever, the  mental  processes  involved  in  the  use  of  the  sight- 
symbols  and  the  sound-symbols  for  a  language  lie  so  near 
together  that  progress  in  one  always  carries  with  it  some- 
thing of  the  other ;  and  I  find  that  students  who  are  really 
proficient  in  either  line  take  up  the  other  line  very  readily. 
After  two  years'  thorough  work  with  the  emphasis  on  transla- 
tion, college  students  can  enter  a  course  conducted  entirely  in 
German  with  very  little  disadvantage,  and  come  out  at  the 
end  of  the  year  much  better  than  those  who  enter  it  after  a 
half-dozen  years  of  "natural  method."  The  whole  matter, 
from  this  point  of  view  merely,  is  not  worth  quarrelling 
about.  Every  teacher  must  determine  for  himself  in  what 
manner  he  can  get  the  best  results  from  the  classes  that  come 
to  him,  and  shape  his  methods  accordingly. 

Far  more  important  is  the  question  of  the  relative  disci- 
plinary value  of  the  two  methods.     I  am  not  one  of  those  who 


TEACHING  MODERN  LANGUAGES.  201 

say  flippantly  that  they  "  don't  believe  in  mental  discipline.'' 
Great  abuses  have  existed  in  the  name  of  mental  discipline ;  but 
that  should  not  blind  us  to  the  fact  that,  as  Professor  Thomas 
says  elsewhere  in  the  article  from  which  I  have  quoted,  "wo 
cannot  throw  it  too  often  or  too  hard  the  face  of  the  public 
that  our  work  is  chiefly  educational."  It  is  our  business  to 
make  out  of  the  boys  who  come  to  us  men  who  can  reason 
clearly  and  correctly,  and  have  the  purpose  and  the  power  to 
use  that  ability  to  do  with  their  might  whatsoever  their 
hands  find  to  do.  I  would  rather  have  contributed  to  the 
formation  of  the  character  of  a  thousand  such  men  than  have 
written  the  most  brilliant  philological  work  of  the  decade,  or 
a  text-book  that  sells  a  million  copies.  I  have  discussed  at 
length  elsewhere  1  the  value  of  translation  work  in  modern 
languages  for  this  purpose.  Compared  with  this,  the  value 
of  any  method  which  excludes  translation  is  very  slight.  The 
advocates  of  such  methods  often  admit  this  fact,  but  justify 
their  method  either  by  saying  that  they  are  not  responsible 
for  the  mental  discipline  of  their  pupils,  —  that  their  business 
is  to  teach  German,  not  to  teach  German,  —  or  by  claiming 
that  the  disciplinary  feature  of  language  work  is  covered  by 
other  studies,  and  that  their  work  can  be  given  to  "practical  ". 
objects.  The  former  amounts  to  the  admission  that  they 
conceive  of  themselves  as  something  extraneous  to  the  proper 
work  of  education,  —  as  hangers-on  on  its  outskirts,  like  the 
Sprachmeister  ;  the  latter  is  again  a  case  of  a  u  condition  and 
not  a  theory."  Where  a  class  of  students  has  abundant  drill 
in  grammar  and  translation  work  in  the  classical  languages,  it 
is  perfectly  possible  that  a  modern  language  teacher  who  is 
more  at  home  in  the  "  unilingual  "  method  than  in  translation 
may  do  them  more  good  in  that  way.  The  question  here 
turns  on  the  personality  of  the  teacher.  In  any  case  it 
would  be  the  height  of  folly  to  reject  this  potent  instrument 
if  it  can  be  used ;  and  if  any  educator  does  reject  it,  or  finds 

*  See  page  124. 


202  COMMON   SENSE  IN 

that  his  modern  language  teacher  is  rejecting  it,  it  behooves 
him  to  take  strict  account  of  the  reasons  for  the  course.  The 
burden  of  proof  is  most  certainly  on  the  opponents  of  trans- 
lation, not,  as  they  would  make  it  appear,  on  the  other 
side. 

The  most'  important  factor  in  the  teaching  of  modern  lan- 
guages is  the  teacher.  I  have  printed  a  discussion  of  the 
qualifications  of  modern  language  teachers,  the  points  of 
which  are  in  brief  as  follows  : 1  — 

1.  Every  teacher,  in  whatever  department,  should  be  a  pro- 
fessional educator,  who  is  in  the  work  from  choice,  and  in  it 
to  stay.  He  should  teach  his  subject  with  reference  to  its 
educational  effect,  and  should  be  able  to  see  its  relations  to 
the  more  general  problem  of  the  training  of  mind. 

2.  He  should  be  a  man  of  broad  general  culture. 

3.  He  should  be  thoroughly  in  touch  with  the  mental  life 
of  his  pupils,  and  able  not  only  to  follow,  but  to  lead,  their 
thoughts  in  their  own  language. 

4.  A  modern  language  teacher  should  know  intimately  the 
language  he  is  to  teach;  every  word  and  turn  of  thought 
should  mean  to  him  something  actual ;  he  ought  to  be  able  to 
think  in  the  language,  to  dream  in  it,  to  crack  jokes  in  it; 
must  have,  in  short,  such  a  knowledge  as  is  only  possible  to 
a  person  who  has  lived  in  the  country  where  the  language  is 
spoken. 

5.  He  must  have  sound  and  serious  scholarly  training  in 
his  special  field ;  must  know  the  history  and  literature  of  the 
language  he  teaches  and  of  the  languages  related  to  it,  and 
must  keep  abreast  of  the  times  in  his  scholarship. 

"  I  believe  that  no  teacher  can  be  notably  deficient  in  any 
of  these  five  lines  without  impairing  seriously  his  professional 
usefulness  —  so  seriously  as  to  shut  him  out  from  the  very 
foremost  rank  in  his  profession."  Are  modern  language 
teachers  often  found  in  the  foremost  ranks  of  the  profession  ? 

1  Papers  of  the  Modern  Language  Association,  New  Series,  vol.  I.,  p.  Hi. 


TEACHING  MODERN  LANGUAGES.  203 

% 

President  Harper,  in  a  recent  article  on  college  salaries, 
enumerates  a  dozen  or  so  of  departments  in  the  order  of  the 
salaries  paid  in  them.  He  does  not  reach  modern  languages 
at  all ;  and  if  at  almost  any  institution  the  Commencement 
procession  were  formed  in  the  order  of  amount  of  salaries, 
the  modern  language  teacher  would  surely  be  found  toward  the 
tail  end.  Of  course  this  is  rather  a  Philistine  view  of 
the  matter,  but  dollars  and  cents  often  furnish  a  touchstone 
by  which  we  can  prove  higher  things.  The  market  price  of 
anything  is  always  a  fair  index  of  its  quality;  and  we  can 
legitimately  ask,  "  Why  is  not  the  quality  of  the  modern  lan- 
guage instruction  in  our  schools  better  ? "  My  answer  to 
this  question  you  will  have  already  anticipated.  It  is  because 
there  has  prevailed  a  false  conception  of  the  nature  of  the 
work  to  be  done,  which  has  turned  away  the  energy  which 
should  have  gone  into  true  educational  work  toward  the 
practice  of  a  mere  art,  and  thrown  the  work  into  the  hands 
of  a  set  of  men  whose  general  average  as  educators  is  very 
low. 

I  have  been  accused  on  all  sides  of  hostility  toward  for- 
eigners as  modern  language  teachers.  I  am  hostile  toward 
some  foreigners,  as  I  am  toward  some  Americans,  and  for  the 
same  reason.  I  am  hostile  toward  any  one  whose  activity 
tends  to  lower  the  standard  of  my  profession.  I  am  hostile 
to  any  one  who  uses  that  profession  as  a  makeshift  while  he 
(or  she)  is  on  the  lookout  for  a  better  opening  in  some  other 
occupation  (such  as  law,  medicine,  or  matrimony),  or  as  a 
"  snug  harbor  "  after  failure  in  something  else.  I  am  hostile 
to  any  one  who  sets  a  lower  for  a  higher  aim  in  any  field  of 
instruction.  I  am  hostile  to  any  one  who  undertakes  any 
work  of  instruction  without  a  thorough  fitness  for  it. 

Now,  there  are  some  classes  of  foreigners  who  are  likely  to 
incur  my  hostility  for  some  of  these  reasons.  First,  the 
Sprachmeister,  who  are  and  should  be  foreigners.  I  have  no 
hostility  towards  them  so  long  as  they  attend  to  their  business 


204  COMMON   SENSE   IN 

and  confine  themselves  to  their  legitimate  sphere  of  usefulness. 
I  send  to  them  freely  any  of  my  students  who  want  what  they 
can  give ;  but  if  they  or  their  methods  cross  the  threshold  of 
the  higher  schools,  I  oppose  them  by  all  means  in  my  power. 

Then,  there  is  the  foreigner  who  is  not  a  teacher.  Any 
man  trained  as  a  teacher  abroad,  who  should  come  here  to 
practise  his  profession,  teaching  modern  languages  if  that  is 
his  line,  I  would  welcome,  and  give  the  same  chance  to  make  a 
place  for  himself  that  I  would  give  to  any  teacher.  A  German 
with  the  training  of  a  Gymnasiallehrer  in  modern  languages, 
who  had  spent  a  year  in  England  as  he  should,  might  come 
here  and  begin  work  with  as  good  chance  of  ultimate  success 
as  most  Americans.  But  if  such  a  man  is  a  good  man,  he  is 
sure  to  find  work  at  home ;  and,  as  the  real  state  of  things,  we 
find  too  often  that  the  foreigner  who  comes  here  to  teach  mod- 
ern languages  is  some  inferior  specimen,  who  never  quite  found 
his  place  in  the  world,  and  comes  to  see  if  he  cannot  make  a 
living  by  exploiting  the  tendency  of  the  Americans  to  employ 
foreigners  in  modern  language  teaching.  To  such  I  am  hostile ; 
and  so  also  I  believe  are  the  real  teachers  of  foreign  birth, 
who  often  know  best  how  these  fellows  injure  the  profession. 

There  are  men,  too,  who  are  of  really  superior  ability,  who 
have  come  to  this  country  for  various  reasons  (often  because 
their  very  ability  has  made  their  own  country  less  agreeable), 
who  have  turned  to  their  language  as  a  means  of  support,  and 
worked  their  way  through  the  Sprachmeister  grade  into  real 
educators.  Such  men  have  for  a  generation  played  a  very 
important  part  in  our  modern  language  instruction.  Toward 
them  I  am  not  hostile  in  the  sense  that  I  am  toward  the  other 
classes  mentioned.  I  gladly  recognize  them  as  colleagues,  and 
will  work  with  them  and  discuss  with  them  to  reach  our  com- 
mon object ;  and,  if  there  is  an  honest  difference  of  opinion,  I 
am  glad  to  talk  it  out  with  them  in  a  temperate  spirit.  But 
I  very  often  do  find  a  difference  of  opinion  which  needs  ad- 
justment.    It  is  among  these  men  that  a  modified  form  of 


TEACHING   MODERN   LANGUAGES.  205 

Sprachmeisterei  is  most  persistent,  and,  just  because  of  their 
comparative  moderation,  most  difficult  to  overcome.  You 
will  find  that  they  all  have  in  their  hearts  a  lingering  desire 
to  dispense  with  translation,  and  do  all  their  work  in  the 
language  in  which  their  thoughts  move  most  freely  —  that 
they  want  their  students  to  go  the  same  way  they  went  them- 
selves in  learning  to  read  their  language,  namely,  through  the 
spoken  language,  which  they  are  prone  to  consider  the  lan- 
guage par  excellence.  This  tendency  grows  less  generally  as 
their  proficiency  in  English  increases ;  but  you  are  liable  to 
hear  from  the  most  liberal  of  them,  in  a  tirade  against  trans- 
lation, something  like  this  :  "  Aside  from  the  reading  of  the 
German  text,  and  even  that  is  not  always  done,  the  student 
hears  and  speaks  nothing  but  English;  in  other  words,  for 
about  ten  minutes  out  of  a  possible  fifty  he  learns  German, 
the  remaining  forty  minutes  he  learns  facts  about  German." 
Epigrammatic  and  plausible ;  but  you  see  the  implications : 
the  only  German  is  that  which  is  heard ;  hearing  German 
is  learning  German,  and  you  are  not  learning  it  unless  you 
are  hearing  it;  facts  about  German  discussed  in  English  do 
not  help  to  learn  German.  Even  the  man  who  is  thoroughly 
trained  as  a  professional  modern  language  teacher  in  Europe 
is  likely  to  make  too  much  of  the  spoken  language  for  the 
needs  of  our  schools,  because  the  spoken  language  is  of  vastly 
more  practical  importance  in  Europe  than  with  us,  and  the 
methods  which  are  developed  there  very  properly  give  it  more 
consideration  than  it  needs  here. 

There  was  at  first,  as  was  to  be  expected,  a  strong  opposi- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  foreign-born  teachers  against  the 
employment  of  Americans  to  teach  modern  languages.  This 
has  of  late  yielded  very  much,  in  the  face  of  undeniable  facts, 
among  the  better  teachers  in  our  schools  and  colleges,  but  is 
still  in  full  force  among  the  Sprachmeister  and  the  public  who 
take  the  cue  from  them.  The  fact  is  that  really  all-round 
men  are  not  often  found  in  modern  languages.     The  foreigner 


206     COMMON   SENSE   IN   TEACHING   MODERN   LANGUAGES. 

almost  never  gets  over  his  disabilities  on  the  third  point  of  my 
list,  unless  he  comes  over  so  young  that  he  is  practically  an 
American,  or  else  spends  years,  always  at  the  expense  of  his 
pupils,  in  mastering  English  and  getting  in  touch  with  Amer- 
ican life  so  that  he  can  manage  American  boys.  The  Ameri- 
can is  likely  to  be  deficient  on  the  score  of  thorough  practical 
knowledge  in  the  language.  In  all  other  respects  he  is  the 
equal  of  the  foreigner,  and  in  the  matter  of  understanding  the 
American  student  he  is  incomparably  superior.  He  can  by 
the  same  assiduity  called  for  in  the  preparation  of  teachers 
for  other  work  —  by  spending  as  much  time  in  Europe  as  they 
spend  in  their  laboratories  —  get  a  practical  knowledge  which 
is  sufficient  for  his  work.  But  the  scale  of  salaries  paid  for 
modern  language  teaching  has  not  yet  warranted  this  thor- 
oughness. There  are  American  teachers  who  have  it,  as  there 
are  foreigners  who  have  overcome  their  essential  weak  point; 
but  I  have  known  many  cases  of  good  men  who  began  to  pre- 
pare to  teach  modern  languages,  but  turned  off  to  some  related 
field,  such  as  English  or  history,  because  they  could  not  see  a 
living  ahead  of  them  in  the  face  of  the  fierce  competition  of 
the  foreign-born  teachers,  and  a  public  sentiment  which  up- 
held the  latter,  and  demanded  a  kind  of  work  which  was  not 
up  to  the  true  standard  of  liberal  education. 

There  is  still  a  great  deal  of  inertia  to  overcome,  Sprach- 
meister  traditions  to  be  lived  down,  and  "  dead  wood  "  on  the 
teaching-force  to  be  superannuated.  It  rests  with  those  of 
you  who  employ  teachers,  and  those  of  your  kind  elsewhere, 
to  make  the  work  of  teaching  modern  languages  what  it 
should  be  in  dignity  and  usefulness.  Set  your  faces  like  flints 
against  Sprachmeisterei  in  liberal  education,  employ  no  man 
or  woman  who  is  not  a  real  educator  by  profession,  and  pay 
salaries  which  shall  warrant  the  same  earnestness  and 
thoroughness  of  preparation  which  you  expect  in  teachers  of 
other  subjects. 


TRANSLATION  INTO  ENGLISH.1 

BY  E.  SPANHOOFD,  ST.  PAUL'S  SCHOOL,  CONCORD,  N.  H. 

In  this  paper  on  "  Translation  into  English  "  I  shall  not  so 
much  treat  of  the  method  as  try  to  give  briefly  my  reasons  for 
practising  it  in  teaching.  Its  exclusive  use,  borrowed  from 
the  practice  of  the  teachers  of  ancient  languages,  led  nearly 
forty  years  ago  to  a  great  reaction,  the  so-called  "  Natural 
Method."  This  method  went  too  far  in  the  opposite  direction, 
and  we  soon  saw  that  the  position  of  the  child  which  is  learn- 
ing its  mother  tongue  is  unique,  in  that  the  child  knows  no 
other  language  whatsoever,  and  that,  after  one  language  has 
been  learned,  we  cannot  assume  in  our  pupils  the  same  favor- 
able conditions  as  regards  any  other.  But  no  sooner  could  we 
think  this  method  safely  disposed  of,  than  there  came  to  us 
from  Germany  and  France  the  New  Method,  as  it  is  now  gen- 
erally called  in  contradistinction  to  the  old  Grammatical  or 
Translation  Method.  This  is  based  on  the  modern  view  of 
language,  as  something  really  existing  only  in  the  actual  speech 
of  people,  and  therefore  emphasizes  the  spoken  language  above 
everything  else ;  it  makes  extended  use  of  the  results  of  the 
equally  modern  science  of  phonetics  and  consequently  lays 
predominant  stress  on  the  acquisition  of  a  faultless,  if  not 
accent-less  pronunciation;  and  it  insists  upon  the  exclusive 
use  of  the  foreign  tongue  as  the  only  medium  of  instruction 
and  of  communication  between  teacher  and  pupil.  The 
advocates  of  this  reform  method  object  to  translation  for  two 

1  Read  before  the  Modern  Language  Section  of  the  New  Hampshire  State 
Teachers'  Association  on  October  20th,  1911,  and  reprinted  from  MonatshefU. 

207 


208  TRANSLATION   INTO   ENGLISH. 

main  reasons:  in  the  first  place,  they  say  that  the  constant 
transition  from  the  articulation  of  the  organs  of  speech  for  the 
one  language  to  that  of  the  other  makes  the  acquisition  of  an 
even  decent  pronunciation  quite  impossible ;  and,  in  the  second 
place,  they  claim  that  by  constantly  translating  from  and  into 
the  foreign  language  nobody  can  form  the  habit  of  under- 
standing the  foreign  language,  or  of  thinking  and  speaking  in 
it,  independently  of  his  mother  tongue.  And  they  like  to 
wind  up  with  the  accusation  that  in  the  old  method  translation 
is  treated  as  if  it  were  the  principal  object  of  language  teach- 
ing. To  which  advocates  of  the  older  methods  retort  that  the 
reformers,  forgetting  entirely  the  literature  of  the  foreign 
language  and  its  study,  make  the  mere  speaking  it  the  princi- 
pal object  of  their  teaching.  And  so  the  war  has  been  waging 
in  Germany,  France,  and  Scandinavia  for  the  last  twenty-five 
years. 

In  this  country,  the  discussion  between  the  Natural  and 
other  methods  had  in  time  cleared  the  atmosphere  sufficiently 
for  us  to  see  that  both  the  translating  and  the  speaking 
method  have  a  right  to  be  used,  provided  they  are  not  con- 
sidered the  objects,  but  merely  the  means  of  our  instruction. 
The  preponderance  of  one  or  the  other  in  our  teaching  will 
depend  on  the  age  of  our  pupils  and  on  their  immediate  prac- 
tical purpose  in  studying  the  foreign  language.  If  our  pupils 
are  young  or  if  their  immediate  aim  is  to  learn  to  speak  the 
language,  of  course  we  shall  practise  speaking  to  a  great 
extent;  but  if  —  and  this  is  our  case  in  preparatory  schools 
—  our  pupils  are  old  enough  to  be  rather  set  in  their  native- 
born  modes  of  thinking,  we  shall  have  to  reckon  with  the 
mother  tongue ;  and  especially,  if  their  main  object  in  studying 
a  language  is  to  pass  the  examination  required  by  our  colleges, 
we  shall  have  to  devote  a  great  deal  of  our  time  to  translating 
into  and  out  of  the  language.  We  have  to  adapt  ourselves  to 
the  conditions  under  which  we  have  to  teach;  we  are  not 
responsible  for  these  conditions. 


TRANSLATION    INTO   ENGLISH.  209 

But,  even  if  we  could  change  these  conditions,  I  believe 
there  are  some  reasons  why  we  should  never  entirely  give  up 
translation  into  English. 

In  the  first  place,  we  have  to  consider  the  weaker  members 
of  our  classes,  boys  or  girls  below  the  average,  not  necessarily 
in  intellect,  but  certainly  in  linguistic  talent.  I  have  always 
felt  very  strongly  the  claims  of  the  spoken  language  and  have 
always  desired  to  give  to  its  practice  as  large  a  part  of  the 
time  of  my  classes  as  possible.  I  have  consequently  used  in 
former  years  the  Natural  method,  as  well  as  the  Berlitz  method, 
both  in  French  and  German;  but,  even  when  I  had  avoided 
the  use  of  the  English  language  for  a  while,  I  have  almost 
always  resorted  to  a  translation  of  the  whole  ground  covered, 
as  a  test  of  its  thorough  comprehension,  and  almost  invariably 
have  found  some  member  of  the  class  who  had  missed  the  correct 
meaning  of  a  word  or  idiom,  to  whom,  therefore,  part  of  the 
lessons  had  remained  a  blank.  There  is  in  every  class  a 
pupil  whose  ear  is  very  obtuse  to  foreign  words,  or  one  who 
persists  in  hearing  nothing  but  English  words  out  of  the 
jumble  of  German  or  French  sounds  that  strike  his  ear.  What 
can  we  do  for  such  a  one  but  give  him  a  word-for-word  trans- 
lation of  even  the  simplest  sentences  ?  He  has  a  right  to 
learn  as  well  as  his  more  fortunate  classmates  with  a  gift  for 
languages,  and  he  must  be  taught  in  the  manner  in  which  he 
most  readily  takes  in  the  knowledge  that  we  have  to  impart 
to  him.  His  having  no  ear  for  languages  certainly  ought  not 
to  keep  him  from  learning  them  by  sight,  or  from  enjoying  the 
science  and  literature  embodied  in  them. 

In  the  second  place,  I  think  it  is  a  fallacy  to  believe  that  a 
foreign  word  is  ever  learned  directly,  by  merely  associating  it 
with  the  object  designated  and  without  resorting  to  the  corre- 
sponding word  of  the  mother  tongue.  If  I  point  to  a  chair  or 
window,  saying  c'est  une  chaise,  das  ist  ein  Fenster,  pupils  will 
think  of  the  English  name  of  these  objects  at  once,  or  even 
before  I  can  give  them  the  foreign  appellation,  because  object 


210  TRANSLATION   INTO  ENGLISH. 

and  name  are  by  habit  so  closely  connected  in  their  minds 
that  one  involuntarily  calls  up  the  other.  The  word  of  the 
mother  tongue  cannot  be  eliminated  simply  by  its  not  being 
mentioned.  And  so  there  is  always  a  silent  translating  going 
on,  especially  when  from  these  simple  object  lessons  we  pass 
on  to  a  somewhat  more  intricate  idea.  My  observation  is  that 
our  pupils  do  not  believe  they  have  got  the  right  meaning  of  a 
word  until  they  have  guessed  the  English  equivalent.  The 
German  word  Gegenteil  expresses  an  idea  the  meaning  of 
which  can  be  made  clear  by  a  few  examples :  Schwarz  is  das 
O.  von  weiss  —  gut  von  schlecht,  gross  von  klein.  The  first 
direct  question :  Was  ist  das  Gegenteil  von  Jcurz  ?  will  gener- 
ally elicit  the  correct  answer  from  several  members  of  a  class, 
and  a  few  more  similar  questions  with  their  answers  will 
spread  the  meaning  of  the  word  to  the  weaker  members  of  the 
class,  so  that  even  they  can  give  correct  answers.  But,  when 
finally  the  English  translation  of  the  word  is  given,  it  is 
amusing  to  see  the  expression  of  evident  relief  that  appears  on 
a  good  many  faces.  Though  these  boys  had  had  a  general  idea 
of  what  the  word  meant,  as  was  shown  by  their  correct  an- 
swers, they  undoubtedly  had  still  been  puzzled  as  to  the  exact 
meaning,  which  nothing  but  the  translation  could  give  them  to 
their  full  satisfaction.  And  is  not  this  the  usual  process  by 
means  of  which  we  increase  our  vocabulary,  either  in  our  own 
or  a  foreign  language  ?  In  meeting  a  word  several  times  in 
various  positions  and  connections,  we  get  each  time  a  clearer 
idea  of  what  it  may  mean,  and,  when  we  have  arrived  at  what 
we  think  is  the  correct  meaning,  we  like  to  see,  by  consulting 
the  dictionary,  whether  we  have  guessed  correctly.  Guessing 
does  not  exactly  describe  the  mental  process  of  evolving  the 
meaning  of  a  word  from  different  contexts^;  it  is  more  like 
finding  an  unknown  quantity  by  means  of  an  equation. 
Applied  to  languages,  this  operation  constitutes  a  very  good 
method  for  learning  new  words,  because  we  get  possession  of 
the  word  first,  and  the  mental  labor  we  expend  on  getting  at 


TRANSLATION   INTO   ENGLISH.  211 

its  meaning  insures  its  permanent  retention  in  our  memory. 
But  it  is  a  rather  lengthy  method  and  not  always  applicable  in 
a  class,  where  we  cannot  be  sure  that  the  mental  operation  is 
properly  carried  out.  If  the  meaning  of  a  word  has  been  cor- 
rectly evolved  from  the  context,  the  translation  gives  an  un- 
deniable satisfaction  and  might  be  retained  for  that  purpose 
alone ;  if  not,  a  translation  in  time  will  save  us  a  lot  of  trouble. 

In  the  third  place,  there  is  no  doubt  that  we  need  it  as  a 
criterion  to  determine  whether  the  right  meaning  has  been 
arrived  at.  There  are  in  both  French  and  German  a  great 
many  words  which  by  their  form  or  by  their  sound  lend  them- 
selves to  constant  misconceptions.  Attendre  does  not  mean  to 
attend,  nor  blesser  to  bless,  nor  se  dresser  to  dress  one's  self; 
the  German  word  Hausjiur  does  not  mean  the  floor  of  the 
house,  but  its  "hall,"  nor  does  lustig  mean  "lusty."  And 
think  what  a  chance  also  has  to  be  identified  with  "  also,"  and 
denn  and  bekommen  to  be  taken  for  "  then  "  and  "  to  become." 
It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  these  examples,  and  some  of  these 
mistakes  look  so  elementary  that  it  seems  impossible  that  any- 
body should  be  misled  by  them.  A  woman  of  intelligence 
once  told  me  that  up  to  her  thirtieth  year  she  had  always  pro- 
nounced to  herself  the  word  "misled"  as  if  it  were  the  parti- 
ciple of  a  verb  "  to  misle."  Faintly  conscious,  perhaps,  of  her 
misconception,  she  had  never  used  the  word  herself,  so  that 
she  did  not  discover  the  error  until  she  accidentally  misread 
the  word  aloud  to  some  one  who  was  in  a  position  to  correct 
her.  Do  we  not  almost  daily  have  the  experience  of  being 
caught  quite  easily  in  the  simplest  traps  ?  My  inference  is 
that  we  must  have  our  pupils  translate  even  the  simplest 
German  or  French,  so  as  to  guard  against  all  such  misunder- 
standings. It  does  not  take  such  a  great  deal  of  time  to  do 
this,  but  it  is  essential  to  apply  this  test  to  their  knowledge, 
and  to  ascertain  by  this  means  its  accuracy. 

So  far,  I  have  had  in  view  only  the  initial  stages  of  language 
study,  when  it  might  still  be  possible  to  avoid  translation  and 


212  TRANSLATION    INTO   ENGLISH. 

exclude  entirely  the  use  of  the  mother  tongue,  and  yet  accom- 
plish good  results ;  when  we  pass  on,  however,  to  the  reading 
of  connected  narrative  or  dialogue  interspersed  with  historical 
and  didactic  passages,  it  is  not  such  an  easy  matter  to  confine 
one's  self  to  the  use  of  the  foreign  language.  For  instance,  in 
a  conversation  the  word  gut  is  often  used  in  the  sense  of  "  all 
right,"  and  nun  in  the  sense  of  "  well "  as  in  the  French  Eh 
bien.  Words  also  assume  new  meanings  in  different  connec- 
tions, and  form  with  other  words  idiomatic  expressions  which 
have  a  meaning  of  their  own,  and  which  can  most  readily  be 
learned  by  a  simple  translation.  If  in  a  certain  passage  the 
French  word  onde  is  explained  by  the  other  word  eau,  we 
may  have  been  given  the  bare  meaning  of  the  passage ;  but, 
unless  we  are  also  told  that  the  word  really  means  "  wave," 
all  its  poetry  is  simply  lost  on  us.  If  the  sentence,  cette  idee 
sourit  d,  mon  pere,  is  explained  by  elle  lui  parid  bonne,  we  do 
not  gain  much  unless  we  are  also  made  aware  that  sourire 
means  "to  smile."  In  order  to  remember  well  idioms  such  as 
sefairef&te  de  qlch,  sich  auf  etwas  freuen,  we  must  comprehend 
them  in  all  their  literalness,  but  their  full  force  is  not  felt 
until  the  translation  "to  look  forward  to  a  thing  with 
pleasure"  is  found.  And  there  are  stranger  and  more  in- 
tricate idioms  in  every  language,  for  which  an  equivalent  ex- 
pression in  our  own  must  be  found  before  the  mind  is  fully 
satisfied. 

The  objection  may  be  raised  that,  by  constantly  translating, 
the  pupil  becomes  dependent  on  the  translation  for  getting  at 
the  sense  of  a  passage  in  a  foreign  language.  I  think,  how- 
ever, that  this  fear  is  exaggerated.  I  am  sure  that  our  pupils 
read  and  understand  perfectly,  without  translating,  passages 
in  simple  French  and  German ;  that  they  read  them  that  way 
constantly  in  preparation  for  their  recitations,  especially  if 
the  oral  use  of  the  language  is  not  entirely  neglected ;  and,  as 
their  vocabulary  and  their  knowledge  of  more  intricate  con- 
structions and  idoms  increase,  they  will  read  in  this  way  longer 


TRANSLATION   INTO   ENGLISH.  213 

and  longer  passages,  only  halting  at  places  where  an  unknown 
or  less  familiar  word  or  expression  or  a  more  intricate  thought 
makes  a  translation  desirable.  I  find  that,  even  in  reading 
my  own  native  German,  I  sometimes  translate  into  English 
when  I  come  to  an  obscure  passage,  the  translation  in  such  a 
case  sometimes  showing  up  the  vagueness  and  looseness  of  the 
thinking  processes  of  the  author,  or  at  any  rate  helping  to 
make  the  passage  perfectly  clear.  Inasmuch  as  our  pupils 
need  this  clearing  away  of  difficulties  much  oftener  than  we 
do,  we  need  feel  no  compunction  about  using  translation  so 
constantly.  Only  one  precaution  ought  to  be  observed  :  namely, 
never  to  have  a  passage  translated  without  first  having  it  read 
in  the  foreign  language.  This  practice  is  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance. Without  it  our  pupils  would  never  learn  to  take  in 
an  idea  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  presented  by  the  foreign 
tongue. 

Of  course  this  ability  to  understand  a  passage  without  trans- 
lating, though  important  when  the  rapid  perusal  of  an  article 
or  a  book  is  aimed  at,  does  not  serve  the  purpose  of  a  pupil 
whose  object  is  to  pass  a  college  examination.  There,  an  in- 
telligent translation  into  English  is  expected ;  and  that,  while 
it  presupposes  the  receptive  comprehension  of  the  text,  calls 
for  a  reproductive  mental  activity  that  can  be  gained  only  by 
constant  practice.  I  need  not  enlarge  upon  this  point.  Here 
is  an  argument  that  would  compel  even  the  most  enthusiastic 
advocate  of  the  New  Method  to  retain  translation  as  a  promi- 
nent feature  of  his  teaching,  at  least  during  the  last  year  of 
the  school  course.  I  do  not  quarrel  with  the  colleges  for 
keeping  it  on  their  programs.  My  line  of  argument  is  all  in 
favor  of  their  position,  and  I  will  add  to  my  other  reasons  a 
last  one,  that  looks  at  the  matter  from  a  more  general  educa- 
tional point  of  view. 

I  refer  to  the  value  of  translation  for  our  pupils'  English 
mother  tongue.  I  take  it  that  the  use  of  the  mother  tongue 
(in  this  case  English)  is  the  centre  of  all  school  instruction. 


214  TRANSLATION  INTO   ENGLISH. 

All  the  various  studies  pursued  at  school  may  have  aims  of 
their  own,  but  if  any  one  of  them  did  not  subserve  the  study 
of  English,  I  am  sure  it  would  soon  be  abandoned.  In  fact, 
what  good  would  all  the  knowledge  we  impart  to  our  pupils 
do  them  if  they  could  not,  if  they  did  not,  acquire  at  the  same 
time  an  increasing  facility  in  expressing  this  knowledge  in 
their  own  language  ?  We  take  it  too  often  for  granted  that 
our  pupils  know  all  about  the  English  language.  For  instance, 
we  want  them  well  grounded  in  English  grammar  before  they 
come  to  our  classes,  and  get  impatient  when  they  cannot  distin- 
guish between  a  pronoun  and  an  adjective,  between  a  relative 
and  an  interrogative  pronoun,  between  an  adverb  and  a  con- 
junction, forgetting  that  that  is  just  what  we  are  there  for, 
namely,  to  make  them  see  logical  distinctions  that  the  English 
language  does  not  make.  Nor  are  they  always  sure  of  the  cor- 
rect use  of  the  prepositions  or  the  meaning  of  the  more  unusual 
words  and  phrases.  There  is  no  better  opportunity  for  discuss- 
ing synonyms  than  when  translating  from  a  foreign  language. 
Original  composition  fails  to  give  the  desired  mastery  of  the 
English  language,  because  the  pupil  may  discard  the  words  and 
constructions  about  which  he  is  doubtful  and  uncertain,  for  the 
simpler  and  more  familiar  ones ;  considering,  as  a  boy  is  said 
to  have  put  it,  that  the  use  of  synonyms  consists  in  employing 
one  word  "when  you  do  not  know  how  to  spell  the  other." 
Translation,  on  the  other  hand,  forces  a  great  many  new  and 
useful  words  and  phrases  upon  the  learner's  attention,  and 
helps,  therefore,  to  enlarge  his  vocabulary  and  to  extend  his 
power  of  expression  to  thoughts  more  mature  and  profound 
than  could  have  originated  in  his  own  brain. 

In  this  connection,  I  may  mention  that  translation  also 
makes  the  new  subjects  and  new  ideas  which  he  meets  with  in 
foreign  authors  more  immediately  and  practically  available. 
When,  in  Germany  or  France,  we  read  an  article,  essay,  or 
book,  we  are,  of  course,  interested  in  remembering  its  subject 
matter  or  thought-context  in  the  German  or  French  form,  be- 


TRANSLATION   INTO   ENGLISH.  215 

cause  only  thus  can  we  make  use  of  it  in  conversing  with 
Frenchmen  or  Germans ;  but,  as  long  as  we  live  among  English- 
speaking  people,  if  we  wish  to  communicate  to  them  ideas 
and  facts  that  we  have  gathered  from  foreign  sources,  our  first 
effort  will  be  to  clothe  them  in  a  form  that  will  make  them 
available  for  this  purpose. 

You  may  think  it  quite  unnecessary  that  I  should  rehearse 
here  all  these  reasons  for  the  practice  of  translation  into  Eng- 
lish, of  the  use  of  which  you  are  probably  perfectly  convinced. 
What  I  have  said  is  not  meant  to  convince  anybody,  but  to 
justify  to  myself  the  extended  use  I  am  making  of  this  means 
of  instruction.  With  the  exclusive  use  of  translation  I  have 
never  been  satisfied ;  I  have  for  years,  therefore,  read  eagerly 
the  reform  literature  so  abundantly  supplied  by  Germany  in 
books,  pamphlets,  and  Vietor's  publication,  Die  Neueren 
JSprachen,  and  as  a  result  I  have  been  confirmed,  in  my  con- 
viction that  the  oral  use  of  the  language,  which  I  had  never 
quite  given  up  since  the  days  of  the  Natural  Method,  is  just 
the  corrective  we  need  to  make  our  teaching  both  interesting 
to  our  pupils  and  satisfactory  to  ourselves.  Feeling  strongly, 
therefore,  the  claims  of  the  spoken  language,  I  might  have 
gone  the  full  length  of  the  reform  method,  if  the  peculiar  con- 
ditions under  which  we  teach  here,  the  age  of  our  pupils  and 
the  college  requirements,  had  not  necessitated  the  retention 
of  translation ;  and,  finding  myself  thus  in  opposition  to  views 
with  which  I  am  at  heart  very  much  in  sympathy,  I  have 
looked  for  as  many  reasons  as  I  could  find  in  justification  of 
my  course.  If  this  self-examination  has  taxed  your  patience, 
I  apologize. 

But  I  shall  not  close  without  a  few  remarks  in  favor  of  the 
oral  use  of  languages.  After  enlarging  on  the  uses  of  trans- 
lation, it  is  only  just  that  I  should  also  say  what  I  think  it 
cannot  do. 

1.  It  cannot  teach  pronunciation.  On  the  contrary,  the 
change  which  it  involves  from  the  articulation  of  the  language 


216  TRANSLATION   INTO   ENGLISH. 

to  be  learned  to  that  of  the  mother  tongue  counteracts  directly 
the  acquisition  of  a  good  pronunciation.  Phonetic  explanations 
are  of  no  avail,  and  the  reading  of  a  few  sentences  or  short 
passages  leads  only  to  worse  bungling.  Only  speaking  the 
language  can  suffice,  using  it  in  question  and  answer,  in  con- 
versation or  short  anecdotes.  For  every  sentence  that  you 
can  have  your  pupils  read  you  can  ask  half  a  dozen  questions, 
and  you  can  ask  every  question  half  a  dozen  times  without 
boring  the  class.  There  need  be  no  fear  of  that ;  young  pupils 
like  to  do  something  and  are  eager  for  their  turn  to  answer. 
Do  you  think  you  could  have  an  exercise  of  six  sentences  read 
by  every  pupil  in  the  class  without  causing  a  revolt  ?  And 
here  is  a  large  amount  of  German  or  French  being  spoken  with 
pleasure  —  and  spoken  after  having  heard  it  pronounced  by 
the  teacher  correctly  and  with  the  proper  intonation.  This 
must  lead  to  a  tolerable  pronunciation  and  trains  the  ear  as 
well.  But  let  me  insist,  it  cannot  be  done  without  a  great 
amount  of  speaking.  A  good  pronunciation  is  a  very  gradual 
growth;  it  must  be  started  right  by  correct  explanations  of 
the  new  sounds  and  some  sort  of  phonetic  drill,  so  that  no 
faulty  habits  are  formed  at  the  beginning.  Moreover,  only 
years  of  practice  can  give  that  ease  of  articulation  and  that 
particular  intonation  which  are  the  essentials  of  what  we  call 
the  accent  of  a  foreign  language. 

2.  Translation  cannot  give  a  vocabulary.  I  mean  a  working 
vocabulary,  the  words  of  which  are  at  our  fingers'  ends  and 
jump  to  the  tip  of  our  tongue  whenever  we  are  in  need  of  them. 
Translation  provides  us  with  the  meaning  of  words,  but  it  does 
not  associate  the  idea  and  the  word  together  so  that  one  may 
call  up  the  other;  nor  does  it  fasten  them  in  our  memories  in 
such  a  way  that  they  are  available  for  our  use  whenever  we 
need  them.  Only  speaking  can  do  this,  because  only  by  speaking 
can  we  get  the  necessary  amount  of  practice.  We  have  com- 
plete command  of  a  word  only  after  we  have  used  it  in  all  its 
different  forms  and  in  all  possible  contexts.    No  amount  of 


TRANSLATION   INTO   ENGLISH.  217 

translating  can  give  ns  such  opportunities.  But  can  speaking 
do  this  ?  Yes,  only  we  must  distinguish  a  working  vocabulary 
from  the  general  dictionary  of  a  language.  The  former  con- 
tains all  the  most  common  words,  from  700  to  1000.  These 
are  all  that  are  really  necessary  to  understand  a  language,  but 
then  they  must  really  be  part  and  parcel  of  our  linguistic  out- 
fit. The  meanings  of  all  other  words  we  either  get  from  the 
dictionary,  or  else  they  come  to  us  from  the  context  of  a  series 
of  familiar  words.  Now  I  should  not  consider  it  an  unrational 
plan  to  devote  the  first  year  of  language  study  principally  to 
the  acquisition  of  such  a  working  vocabulary  by  all  possible 
means,  but  especially  by  the  practice  of  speaking.  The  rest 
of  the  language  would  gradually  grow  around  this  nucleus  by 
a  kind  of  crystallizing  process,  and  for  this  gradual  growth 
translation,  of  course,  is  of  great  assistance ;  hence,  it  would 
find  its  place  in  the  later  years  of  the  course. 

3.  Translation  does  not  teach  one  to  think  in  a  foreign  lan- 
guage. By  thinking  is  not  meant  logical  thinking.  Of  course 
we  can  never  teach  our  pupils  to  reason,  make  inferences,  and 
draw  conclusions  in  French  or  German,  or,  as  it  has  been  put, 
make  a  boy  rack  his  brains  in  German  or  cudgel  his  brains  in 
French.  What  is  meant  by  "  thinking  in  a  language  "  is  merely 
the  ability  to  express  a  thought  in  the  foreign  language  or  to 
take  in  a  thought  clothed  in  a  form  of  the  foreign  language, 
and  to  do  this  directly,  without  taking  the  roundabout  way 
through  the  mother  tongue.  That  this  can  be  done  is  a  matter 
of  a  very  common  experience ;  in  studying  a  foreign  language 
we  always  aim  at  this,  and  we  are  sure  of  having  made  progress 
in  a  language  when  we  feel  we  can  think  in  it.  This,  of  course, 
is  the  very  opposite  of  translating.  As  I  have  said,  however, 
translating  is  not  quite  so  much  of  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
this  result  as  would  seem  at  first  glance.  Just  because  it  is  a 
roundabout  way,  the  mind  refuses  to  travel  it  and  does  without 
it,  as  soon  as  it  gets  some  familiarity  with  the  ground  to  go  over. 
Only  we  must  assist  the  mind  a  little  in  gaining  this  familiar- 


218  TRANSLATION    INTO   ENGLISH. 

ity,  and  that  can  best  be  done  by  speaking  —  which  involves 
constant  practice,  constant  repetition,  without  which  there  can- 
not be  any  real  familiarity  with  a  subject,  especially  a  language. 
If,  then,  we  would  have  our  pupils  get  a  good  pronunciation, 
a  good  working  vocabulary,  and  some  ability  to  take  in  the 
meaning  of  a  passage  without  translating,  we  ought  to  include 
the  practice  of  speaking  in  our  modern  language  courses.  There 
is  also  this  general  consideration  that  should  never  permit  us 
to  omit  the  oral  use  of  a  language  which  we  are  teaching : 
speaking  is  the  essential  part  of  a  language.  We  teach  German 
script,  not  because  it  is  of  so  very  much  importance,  but  be- 
cause it  belongs  to  German,  and  if  we  omitted  the  script  from 
our  German  courses  we  should  neglect  part  of  our  duty,  which 
is  to  teach  as  much  of  German  as  we  can  under  the  circum- 
stances. We  teach  a  great  many  things  that  are  of  no  impor- 
tance in  themselves :  e.g.  that  der  Kase  is  the  only  masculine 
noun  in  e  belonging  to  the  first  class  of  the  strong  declension, 
or  that  the  verb  benir  forms  an  irregular  past  participle  in  t, 
and  so  forth,  while  we  slight  more  or  less  —  let  us  confess  that 
we  do  it  —  the  most  essential  part  of  a  language,  namely,  a 
speaking  knowledge  of  it.  It  is  an  incontrovertible  axiom  with 
me,  that  nobody  can  pretend  to  know  a  language  unless  he  can 
speak  it.  Do  we  consider  that  our  immigrants  know  English 
as  long  as  they  cannot  speak  it  ?  And  yet  there  are  people 
who  think  they  know  French  and  German  without  being 
able  to  speak  them.  Send  them  to  France  or  Germany,  if 
you  want  to  disabuse  them.  Look  at  the  fate  of  Latin.  As 
long  as  it  was  spoken  in  class  and  lecture  room,  people  got  a 
fairly  good  knowledge  and  command  of  it;  they  did  not  leave 
it  behind,  when  they  left  the  halls  of  learning,  but  read  and 
enjoyed  their  classic  authors  all  their  lives.  Latin  was  alive 
as  long  as  the  teachers  of  Latin  kept  it  alive,  and  became  a 
dead  language  only  when  they  killed  it  by  dropping  its  oral 
use.  Now,  French  and  German  are  living  languages.  The 
question  is :  Ought  we  to  teach  them  as  if  they  were  dead  ? 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


DEC    8   1947, 
fcpfU     IBtt 


°v&6 


27Jan'56ji» 
JANI  91951 


LD  21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 


I  U      *fM«fO£ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


